


i'm the powder, you're the fuse (just add some friction)

by taoslefteyelid



Category: EXO (Band), Z.Tao (Musician)
Genre: Anal Sex, Business AU, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, blowjob, but also they fuck, sdjhfja a lot of hickies, sehun's an idiot and thinks zitao is a fuckboy, so fuckenemies to lovers, they get drunk a lot too, they're dumb and don't get feelings, they're good at their jobs, zitao is a responsible adult and consent is clear and evident
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-05
Updated: 2019-07-05
Packaged: 2020-06-11 18:13:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19545616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taoslefteyelid/pseuds/taoslefteyelid
Summary: Don't fight, don't fuck. Simple enough. Right?





	i'm the powder, you're the fuse (just add some friction)

**Author's Note:**

> HELLO i'm back again with taohun bc that is my job. Please keep in mind that this is the first nsfw fic i've ever posted so shdfjk. Also this fic is completely Sehun's fault because I saw an edit of him wearing lipstick and that made me think of a scene in this universe (which actually didn't make it into the final fic) (but if you want to hear about that hit me up)  
> Anyways, I really really hope you enjoy this!

It is a commonly held rule in the business world that there are two things one simply does not do with their coworkers: fighting, and fucking. This information comes from years of experience, business deals gone awry thanks to a jilted lover, an unexpected promotion causing an equally unexpected resignation. Unlike some business traditions (seriously, who believes that itchy palm nonsense?), this one is actually solid advice. The kind you’d hear in a Starbucks at 11am on Sunday, where all the entrepreneurs get together for their soy milk fat free lattes, MacBooks open with excel sheets pulled up. 

“Debra, dating him is a bad idea. What if you break up? Then what?” or “John, making enemies in the workplace isn’t good for your reputation. People have connections in this industry. You make one enemy, you make a hundred more.”

Don’t fight, don’t fuck. Simple enough.

And yet, there manage to be people who do both at the same time, because being a rebel is “trendy” and “fun”, and three full paragraphs explaining why it’s a bad idea just isn’t  _ enough. _

SM Enterprises is a perfectly normal investment firm. Capitalistic, running on coffee and the blood of its employees, with just enough water cooler drama to keep everyone from keeling over from exhaustion during break.

Said water cooler drama often features one Huang Zitao and one Oh Sehun, especially on the days when super important meetings with super important people take place. They are popular, as expected, for committing one of the big no-nos. Publicly hating each other.

Huang Zitao is the company’s top VP. He can smooth talk like nobody’s business, and every client he deals with treats him like a long lost childhood friend, even if it’s just their first meeting. He’s charming and almost everybody likes him, interns scrabbling to get his attention, his superiors almost always stopping in the corridors to chat. 

Oh Sehun, on the other hand, is their Marketing head. He’s amazing at his job, it’s just that he’s not very talkative, at least, not to most people. Sehun’s relatively new, but he’s the one who lead the company into their highest influx of new potential clients. 

In fact, many believed that Zitao and Sehun were the ones who single handedly kept the company afloat. Sehun brought in the clients, and Zitao made them stay. Dream team. Perfect. 

Except, of course, for the small fact that they seemed to hate each other’s guts. 

Any and all company meetings had at least twenty six instances of the two of them offhandedly snubbing each other, or just being downright antagonistic. Others in the room awkwardly sat and stared, not much else they could do as Zitao ignored Sehun’s calm hand when he asked for questions, or when Sehun called Zitao stupid when he made a suggestion. 

This, obviously, was always met with disapproval from their superiors, most of them distraught that the two most important new blood members of the company didn’t get along. The interns, however, fought over who got to bring coffee to the meeting room when the two of them had a conference together, all of them equally excited to grab some of those juicy details.

No one really knows how it started. It was rare for Zitao especially to not like somebody, so to see him publicly snub someone was a topic of discussion for a reason. Some suspect it had something to do with Sehun allegedly slapping Zitao this one time, while others said it was something more primal, an innate hatred that broke all rules of logic.

Of course, they’re all wrong. The problem with Zitao and Sehun started with Zitao trying to welcome Sehun into the company with a lazy grin and a casual handshake, and Sehun assuming that he was fake, condescending, and lazy. It was all just a misunderstanding really, false judgement of character, but one thing lead to another, Sehun snubbed Zitao, Zitao snarked back, well placed questions and botched presentations turned to snide remarks and glares in the corridor, and there they were, the most popular rivals in the company.

Everyone else is also wrong in thinking that they’ve only breached  _ one  _ of the Big Business No-Nos. No, Mr. Huang and Mr. Oh don’t just hate each other; They hate each other and fuck at the  _ same time. _

This is indeed a completely unforeseeable plot twist, one that was absolutely  _ not  _ expected at all, so background input is obviously necessary.

It started out with a kiss- no it didn’t, it started out with Sehun grabbing Zitao’s tie at a bar in the middle of the city after a long, tiring day of work, wherein Zitao had snubbed Sehun’s pitch for more budget into marketing, causing him to falter in his presentation. Sehun, understandably, was mad about that, and went to said bar to drown his worries in Jell-O shots and vodka. It took three Jell-O shots and one sip of vodka till he was completely plastered, which is when he spotted Huang Zitao leaning against the bar, casually drinking a neat whiskey, tie slightly loosened. 

Sehun then decided to do what any sane, drunk out of their mind person would do. He stalked over, grabbed Zitao by the tie, and pulled him forward, making him spill his drink all over Sehun’s four thousand dollar  Manolo Blahnik’s. In Sehun’s defense, he’d meant to spit in Zitao’s face, or something just as dramatic, but Zitao, in his haste to steady himself, had grabbed Sehun’s ass. Of course, the normal response would be pull away, but instead, Sehun decided to kiss him. 

It was rather heated, and one thing led to another, ending up with them waking up to find each other in the same bed. Neither one of them were the type to do one night stands, so of course, it was just their luck that they ended up with each other. They swore it won’t happen again, contempt filled glares drenching the room as they wordlessly put their clothes back on. 

But, as expected, they didn’t keep said promise. 

The first board meeting after that, the two of them were left alone to clean up. It took one brush of their hands before Zitao had Sehun up against a wall, his Louis Vuitton suit jacket already on the floor.

Since then, they spend all their time in public calling each other out, and all of their time in private calling each other’s  _ names _ out. It’s definitely not gentle, and even in the middle of making out, they let each other know exactly how much hatred they hold.

Don’t fight, don’t fuck. They’ve heard it for years. It’s simple enough.

Who ever got anywhere taking the simple way out?

\---

Cynthia, affectionately called Cindy by her friends, is one of the newest interns at SM. She’s the textbook definition of a perfectionist, the type of person who carries around fifteen of those Zebra Mildliners, and has a bullet journal. She hadn’t done much except coffee orders so far (coffee orders which she had memorized to be  _ perfect,  _ thank you very much), so when she got asked to take notes at the next stats meeting, she hurriedly accepted.

For Cindy, all the big, important faces in the room were a blur. Her girlfriend always told her to try and remember at least her boss’s names, but Cindy was hopeless with that. In fact, she hadn’t known her girlfriend’s name till two weeks after their third date. She figures it doesn’t matter though. She’s there to observe, not socialize.

The meeting finishes quickly enough, the normal boring business drama, talking about numbers, showing graphs about numbers, arguing about numbers. A lot of numbers. 

All the senior executives file out, laughing about golf and Sunday brunch, leaving exactly three people in the room. Cindy, of course, is one of them. Interns don’t get the privilege of walking out first. 

The other two people in the room, are two people no one should ever be stuck with in a room alone. The company’s top rivals, known to be openly antagonistic, enough to make anything awkward. Yes, even Cindy with her horrible memory knows who Huang Zitao and Oh Sehun are.

Cindy decides to keep her head down, scooping her various multi-colored pens into her clear pencil case, fully aware of the awkward silence in the room. Once she’s done with her own things, she starts to clear up the coffee cups on the table. It’s an unwritten part of her job description as an intern. However, she isn’t expecting to be interrupted. 

“Just what do you think you’re doing?” 

It’s Sehun’s quiet voice, and Cindy looks up, slightly pale. She doesn’t like social interaction. 

“I, uh- I was cleaning up?” 

Zitao slips down from where he’d been perched on the edge of the table. 

“Oh no, that’s okay, we’ll do it ourselves.”

Zitao smiles one of his famous charming smiles, and she feels a little more at ease. She starts walking to the door, but she’s still hesitant.

“Are you sure? I can-” 

Sehun huffs, rolling his eyes, opening the door and motioning for her to go through. 

“Yes, we’re sure, now go, skedaddle.” 

Cindy rushes out, too relieved to be out of that situation to wonder about why both of them insisted on staying back, or even the click of the door locking behind her. 

She needs a coffee of her own. 

Inside the boardroom, however, the tension still lingers, though it’s not the kind everyone picked up on. 

Sehun hurriedly locks the door, turning around when he hears Zitao laugh smugly. 

“Eager, are we?” 

Stupid Huang Zitao with his smug fucking smirk and cocky posture. Sehun hates him so fucking much, it’s unreal. 

“Shut the fuck up,” he says, injecting venom into his words, which is hard to do when you’re slowly gravitating towards the person you’re saying them to.

“Rude,” says Zitao mockingly, still smirking as Sehun comes closer to him, close enough for Zitao to grab him by the waist and pull him in roughly. 

Sehun holds back a gasp, heat rushing in as he’s manhandled. 

“God, I hate you,” he says, and then proceeds to lean in to kiss Zitao. This, of course, is unusual behaviour for someone who has just declared their hatred for the person they’re kissing, but as already established, their relationship is far from normal. 

Zitao kisses back furiously, picking Sehun up and placing him unceremoniously on the table. He breaks the kiss, Sehun already removing Zitao’s black YSL suit jacket. 

“Believe me,” he gasps out, Sehun’s hands working their way down his shirt to unbutton it. “The feeling is mutual.”

Sehun jerks his hand hard enough for the last button on Zitao’s shirt to go flying across the room, clattering against the whiteboard. Sehun only has time to smile smugly and push Zitao’s shirt off his shoulders before he’s lying flat against the table, legs coming up to wrap around Zitao’s waist. 

“That shirt,” Zitao says, distaste evident in his voice, “was Armani.” 

Sehun tries to snort, but it’s lost in the shudder that rolls through his body as Zitao noses up his neck. His hands are on Zitao’s arms and his chest, and he’s enjoying the way Zitao’s muscles flex under them. Sehun’s already hard, has been since he kissed Zitao. They don’t get to do this a lot, and meeting days are almost like blessings. For his body, of course. The rest of him can’t stand Zitao.

“Too bad, it’s an ugly shirt anyways,” he breathes out. 

“Fuck you.”

Sehun lets Zitao’s arm go as he wiggles out of his own shirt, his legs falling from Zitao’s waist. Zitao starts to unbuckle his own belt as Sehun pushes his trousers down. 

“Glad to see you’re not as slow as I thought, yes, that’s exactly what you’ll be doing today.”

Sehun twists to reach into the pocket of his trousers, which have been pushed to his knees along with his boxers. He fiddles with fabric until his hands clasp around the tube of lube, and lets his trousers fall to the floor. 

He takes it out and throws it at Zitao.

“Now prep me, you insufferable bastard.”

“Do you carry this everywhere?”, asks Zitao, unscrewing the cap already. “You’ll be in so much trouble if you get caught.”

“Why do you care? Besides, they aren’t going to fire their top Marketing executive over some lube, grow up.”

“True,” Zitao says, nodding conversationally as he squirts the lube onto his fingers. “But you’ll be the source of all the gossip for weeks. You know,  _ I  _ heard that Oh Sehun fingers himself in the bathroom during breaks.“

Sehun opens his mouth to reply, but the first syllable of his sentence is stretched out into a low moan as Zitao slips a finger into him.

“Maybe you’d like that, wouldn’t you? Everyone talking about how you get yourself off.” 

Zitao’s rough with how he handles Sehun, but he’s still careful in prepping him, biting hickies onto his neck to distract him from the stretch, his clean hand resting on Sehun’s stomach. He may hate Sehun, but he doesn’t want to hurt him.

“All I’m getting from this,” Sehun gasps out, between sharp intakes of breath and low moans, “is that you think about me getting myself off a lot.”

Zitao laughs lowly, slipping another finger into Sehun, smirking at the way he gulps.

“Oh, you’d like that, wouldn’t you, sweetheart?”

“Call me that again and I’ll cut your dick off.”

“You wouldn’t. You love my dick too much.”

“I have never loved anything about you and I never-  _ oh my god, yes, please there.” _

Zitao skims over the spot he’s found again, laughing as Sehun moans underneath him. He slips in a third finger, still intent on prepping him properly.

“You were saying?”

“Just-“

Sehun grits his teeth, and then lets another moan fall out of his mouth, eyes almost rolling to the back of his head as his back arches off the table. 

“-fuck me already.”

Zitao pulls away, unbuttoning his trousers, letting them fall to the floor. He steps out of them, bending down to retrieve the condom from his pocket. 

“Who’s the one who’s going to be in trouble now?”

Sehun means to sound quippy, but that’s hard to do when he’s flat on his back, breathing heavily as he recovers from being fingered.

They don’t exactly have a lot of time to do this, but Zitao indulges in slowly, almost painfully so, taking off his briefs, smirking smugly as Sehun takes quick, shallow breaths on the table to calm himself down. 

“You’re pathetic,” says Zitao, as he rolls the condom on, aligning himself properly.

“Says you,” Sehun breathes out. “The man who fucked up the finance scatterplot as if he was a newbie.”

Zitao pauses.

“Woah, that scatterplot wasn’t a fuck up. Just because my colors were a bit off-“

“Shut up and just-“

Sehun’s cut off by the moan that escapes his mouth as Zitao pushes in, throaty and wanton. His hands go up into Zitao’s hair, tugging almost painfully as he adjusts to the stretch.

Zitao starts moving almost immediately, and Sehun lets out a long string of curses and heavy moans, fingers still pulling at Zitao’s hair. It’s  _ almost  _ too fast, too much, but Sehun revels in it. Zitao shifts, making Sehun sit up a bit with a quick tug at the same time, and suddenly, Sehun’s seeing stars.

“Fuck,” he whispers. “Fuck, oh my god, don’t stop, don’t fucking stop.”

If there’s one thing Sehun knows, it’s that no matter how incompetent he finds Zitao in professional life, the sex is  _ amazing _ . Sehun won’t be caught dead saying it, but Zitao  _ knows  _ how to fuck, and he does it well.

It’s almost brutal, and definitely filthy, the way Sehun indulges in being folded in half and fucked till he can barely see by the one man he claims to hate more than anyone. He drools slightly, clinging to Zitao’s hair as he pushes back to meet his face. 

“Please,” he whimpers, and somewhere in the back of his mind he marvels at the fact that he’s already at the point of begging. “Just, please- fuck, just a bit faster.” 

The new angle has already pushed him to the brink, and his hands have shifted from tangling in Zitao’s hair to scrabbling down to Zitao’s back, scratching thin lines down as Zitao thrusts into him, hard and punishing.

Sehun’s stretched thin enough already, moans echoing in the room, merging with Zitao’s, so when Zitao sharply tugs at his hair, it’s enough for him to fall apart.

Sehun cums, clenching tightly around Zitao as he does so. He lets his head fall back as he rides out his orgasm, convulsing slightly, vision blacked out. When his vision clears, Zitao is still looming over him, frantically chasing his own release as he shakes his head at Sehun.

“You’re so fucking easy,” Zitao grunts. “I didn’t even have to touch your dick.”

Sehun’s struggling to keep his eyes open, overly sensitive, but he waves his hand lazily.

“Just cum already so that we can get this over with, I have two stacks of paperwork to complete today.”

Zitao doesn’t respond, sweat accumulating on his forehead, so Sehun does his best to clench as tightly around him as possible. Zitao lets out a low moan, and then he’s cumming, filling the condom.

Zitao stills, taking a moment to breathe, before he pulls out and removes the condom, tying it off neatly. Sehun’s still lying on the table, completely lax as Zitao bends to retrieve the silk handkerchief from his trouser pocket. He straightens, using the handkerchief to wipe Sehun’s cum off the table and Sehun’s stomach and then wraps the condom in the handkerchief and tosses it into the trash.

“I wiped you down,” he says, as he starts to pull his trousers back on. “You owe me one.”

It takes Sehun a bit to process what he says. He scoffs as Zitao starts to button his shirt.

“I don’t owe you shit.”

“You’re unbearable,” Zitao huffs, as he retrieves a grey suit jacket from the floor. He moves to the door as he puts it on, adjusting his cuffs and tilting his head from side to side to relax himself.

“Turn off the lights on your way out, you know how the boss gets about electricity bills.”

Sehun flips him off.

-

It doesn’t take long for Sehun to slide off the table and wear his clothes hurriedly. His tie might be a little crooked, and his collar may be sticking up too much to cover up the hickies on his neck, but otherwise, he looks fine. 

He adjusts his tie before he walks into his office. There. Not that bad.

Sehun steps in, only to find his assistant sitting on  _ his  _ chair, legs up on the desk and phone in hand. 

“Get out of my chair,” Sehun says, as his assistant looks up.

“You look like shit.”

“Fuck off, I look fine,” he replies as he stalks over to his desk.

“You look like you’ve just been fucked on the floor, probably because you have.”

Sehun opens his mouth and then closes it again, trying to stop himself from slapping his assistant. 

“Okay, firstly, I got fucked on a  _ table.  _ I have class-“

“If you had class, you wouldn’t let yourself get wrecked by Huang motherfucking Zitao.”

There are exactly three people in the world who know about Zitao and Sehun’s arrangement. Two of them, of course, are Zitao and Sehun themselves. The third, however, is Sehun’s assistant. Well, assistant slash former roommate slash best friend. Kim Jongin.

The only reason Jongin knew was because he’d walked in on Sehun pressing Zitao against a wall and grinding down on his thigh.

_ “What the fuck?” _

_ Sehun pushes away from Zitao as if he’s been burnt.  _

_ “It’s not what you think! I was threatening him!” _

_ “You have a boner, Sehun.” _

_ Silence. Then, _

_ “I’m kinda kinky?” _

Of course, that excuse didn’t work, because Jongin has known Sehun since first grade, and he happens to know that Sehun’s brand of kinky leans more towards masochism than sadism. And so he was inducted, rather unwillingly, into the circle of people who knew about their arrangement _. _

“I never should’ve hired you,” Sehun grumbles, plopping down at his seat now that Jongin has vacated it and opening his laptop to pull up the files he needs to refer to for his paperwork.

Sehun had asked Jongin to be his assistant because Jongin needed a job, and Sehun wanted someone to run coffee orders for him, because the interns always fucked his order up. In their defense, his order  _ was  _ in fact thirty nine words long. Luckily, Jongin had it memorized, so Sehun had sent in an application, and Jongin was instantly on SM’s payroll.

Everyday, however, Sehun regrets that decision. He’d take one less shot of espresso over having a demon perched on the settee next to his favorite artificial plant. 

“You’re right,” Jongin sighs. “Then I wouldn’t have to deal with images of you and Mister Finance over there getting it on.”

Sehun looks up from where he’s searching for a pen on his messy desk.

“You don’t  _ have  _ to think about that, you know?”

Jongin shakes his head somberly.

“I’ve seen too much.”

Sehun finally finds a pen in the chaos known as his desk drawer, and he pulls it out, rolling his eyes at Jongin’s dramaticness.

“Go,” he says, making a shooing motion with his hand. “Make yourself useful, get me a coffee.”

“You know,” says Jongin, completely ignoring Sehun as he turns the chair on the other side of Sehun’s desk around to sit on it. “I’m starting to think that this  _ thing  _ you and him have going on might have… feelings, behind it.”

“Don’t be fucking ridiculous.” 

Sehun says that with more bite than he intends, but he really can’t help it. The thought of Huang Zitao is enough to cause his skin to crawl (and his dick to take sudden interest, but Jongin doesn’t need to know about that).

Jongin doesn’t respond, so Sehun looks up from his laptop. 

“Why would you even think that? It’s absurd.”

“For starters,” Jongin says, reaching over to fiddle with the desk lamp. Sehun swats his hand away. “Your rivalry thing doesn’t make sense. It never has. You got pissed at him for introducing himself to you and he got pissed at you getting pissed at him.”

Sehun opens his mouth, but Jongin trudges on. 

“Also, he’s the only person you fuck. You’ve not gone on a date since you got this job, and I know you’re not out there having one night stands either.”

Sehun brings his hand up to his head, breathing in the scent of the fabric of his suit jacket sleeve. When he’s stressed, he likes to sniff his own clothes. His fabric softener has remained the same since he was a kid, so it reminds him of home. Except, today something feels off, but the scent is still pleasant, so he doesn’t pay attention to it.

“That doesn’t prove  _ anything _ -”

“He’s exactly your type, Sehun. I’ve told you this before, but it’s true. You have  _ horrible  _ taste in men.”

“I do  _ not  _ have horrible taste in men. My taste in men is tall, and strong, and hot, and rich, and good in bed-”

“And Huang Zitao,” Jongin interrupts, pretending to draw a checkmark in midair. 

“I’m going to fire you.”

“You aren’t denying it,” Jongin says. “Besides, I don’t think that if  _ I  _ had a mortal enemy who I occasionally fucked that I didn’t have any feelings for whatsoever, I wouldn’t be walking around wearing their jacket.”

Sehun’s confused, until he looks down and is greeted by black YSL velvet instead of his grey checkered Lanvin wool weave. 

“Fuck,” he breathes out. “We must’ve gotten them mixed up.”

“It goes well with your outfit, better than what you were originally wearing.”

Sehun scrambles for a sticky note to scribble a reminder to send Zitao his jacket back, along with a tin of expired bon-bons. The kind that cause food poisoning. 

“How dare you,” he deadpans as he hurriedly writes the note.

Jongin laughs, standing up and kicking the chair back in place. 

“I’m going to go get your coffee before you decide to bite my head off. How much espresso?” 

“Three extra shots. And next time you even  _ imply  _ that I harbour any form of positive emotion for Huang Zitao, I’m making you do paperwork instead of coffee runs.”

“I seem to have hit a sensitive spot,” says Jongin, walking to the door. “Oh, also, I needed to tell you something.” 

Sehun waits for Jongin to continue as he watches him hover near the door. 

“I’m not going to come in for the next three weeks. I’ve talked to HR about it already, so it shouldn’t be a problem-”

“What? Why?”

Jongin smiles excitedly. 

“You know my dance group? We ended up getting booked for a bunch of gigs, and things are really starting to take off, so I want some time to figure things out. Fetching you coffee, enjoyable as it is, doesn’t really give me that.”

Sehun gapes at him, mouth open in shock. 

“What? That’s amazing, Jongin! Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” 

“Sorta slipped my mind.  _ But,  _ we  _ will  _ have to celebrate soon. What do you say, tonight, Electric Kiss, drinks on me?” 

Sehun thinks about it, mentally pulling up his schedule, and then nods. 

“Yeah, yeah, sure. You can tell me more about this then.”

“Sounds like a plan,” says Jongin, smiling as he points at Sehun as he leaves the room. 

Sehun watches as he walks out, thinking about their conversation.

He huffs, and returns to his paperwork. Him? Liking Huang Zitao?

Never going to happen.

\---

Drinks, as it turns out, were a bad idea. Sehun knows very well that he’s a lightweight. He’s known since the time he was sixteen and got high off more than a teaspoon of cough syrup. With experience, he found that all he can handle without getting plastered is a single Jell-O shot. After that, however, things start to get dicey. Of course, this doesn’t stop him from doing shots of vodka, back to back, not when Jongin is paying for them. 

This, however, means that he wakes up the next morning with a killer headache. Hangover. He’d pick up a coffee, but he’s already running late, and he doesn’t trust himself to drive, so he gets in an Uber Premier and tries to hide inside his Gucci sports jacket (casual Friday). It kinda sucks that he can’t get his coffee on the way in, because Jongin’s leave starts today, from what a half drunk Sehun could gather from Jongin yelling over the music.

Sehun manages to settle into his office without much ado. Luckily, he has no meeting today, nothing important. He just has to clock in, camp in his office for a while, and he can leave early. Cite a dentist appointment or something. 

He opens his e-mail to scroll through it and pretend to do something, except there’s a new message sitting proudly at the top of his inbox. It’s from one of his many bosses, something about a favor. This boss, in particular, makes very good chocolate cake, and always treats Sehun to some, so Sehun is inclined to do most favours requested by him. 

The issue seems to be with the finance department. His boss had asked one of the managerial directors to get hold of an analyst to help him figure out how much of their budget would be practical to funnel into advertising. The managerial director had given a name, but nothing else, so his boss wanted him to find that analyst and just pass on the message. 

It wouldn’t be too much of a problem, Sehun thinks as he types up the analyst’s name on the file records to figure out which VP she was under. At least, he thinks it won’t be too much of a problem until he sees the head of her team. Huang Zitao.

Sehun groans, sliding down in his seat. He’s really not in the mood to deal with him, not today. Even though the headache is slightly ebbing away and he can keep his eyes open for more than a minute, it’s still not ideal conditions, not by a long shot.

Sehun decides that he’s going to have to do it, but he’s going to put it off for as long as possible. That means checking his e-mail three more times, just for the sake of it, pretending to be looking at his paperwork, and then dimming the lights of his office and taking a half an hour nap on the settee. When he wakes up, he’s slightly groggy, but he knows what he has to do. 

“It’s okay,” he murmurs to himself as he makes his way down the hall to the elevator that goes up to Finance. “Once you’re done with this, you can go home. You can watch  _ The Notebook _ and eat pizza. Just finish this meeting. Don’t punch him in the face. Don’t get a boner.”

He gets in the elevator, nodding to the older man already in it. He recognises him as one of the other VPs in the Finance department. Marketing and Finance aren’t the closest, but everyone does have a general idea of who who is. The elevator dings, and this is Zitao and his team’s floor, so Sehun sighs and steps out. 

He struts down the hallway, putting on his business walk. Luckily (or unluckily, if you ask Sehun) he doesn’t have to search for Zitao. It seems as if he’s stepped out of his office for a quick chat with another VP, jeans and leather jacket nicely fitted as he leans against a cubicle wall. Of course, Sehun isn’t focused on that. Not at all. Sehun’s mouth  _ definitely  _ doesn’t go dry when sees Zitao has earrings in. All he’s thinking about is how Zitao doesn’t seem to give a fuck about dress code, casual Friday doesn’t mean he can dress like a hooligan. He’s  _ definitely  _ not thinking about how the earrings would feel against his teeth. 

Sehun clears his throat.

“Mr. Huang,” he says, voice as crisp as possible when he’s kinda hungover and is striking back rebellious thoughts. “Could I talk to you for a second?” 

“Excuse me a minute,” he hears Zitao say to the VP he was talking to. Sehun watches as Zitao walks over to where Sehun is standing, hands in his pockets and smirk on his face. 

“Well, well. What brings you over to Finance, sweetheart?” 

Sehun grits his teeth.

“I  _ told  _ you not to call me that, you bastard.”

Sehun keeps his voice low. He’s not exactly a fan of his regular involvement in water cooler gossip.

“Anyways, I need to speak with one of your analysts, Miss Irene?”

“Oh no, sorry, no can do. Analysts can’t be disrupted in the middle of their work. You can talk to her at the end of the day-“

“I’m leaving in ten minutes.”

Zitao shrugs. 

“Then I guess you’ll just have to come on Monday.”

_ Think about the pizza and The Notebook,  _ he tells himself.  _ Hot pizza and Ryan Gosling. Nice comfy couch and Ryan Gosling. Amazing quiet evening and Huang Zi- Ryan Gosling. _

He breathes in deeply, and sighs.

“Okay, listen. You let me talk to her, and I’ll owe you one, okay? You’ll hold one over me, how does that sound?”

Sehun really doesn’t want to do this, but he also  _ really _ just wants to go home, and he can’t do that until this is done, so he has to. He watches as Zitao pauses and considers it, and wants to curl up into a ball when he sees Zitao’s smirk forming. 

“Alright,” he says. “I’ll call her in. Unless you want me to just pass a message, because I assume that’s all you need to do.”

“Can you do that?”

“Since you owe me for this, sure!”, says Zitao, still smirking. “I’m usually very nice, it’s just that your existence sort of puts me off-”

“Okay, okay, shut up and just take the message. Mr. Kim wanted an analyst for advertising, your Managerial Director recommended her. Just tell her to meet him on Monday.” 

“That’s it?”, Zitao asks, hands in his pockets. “Cool, I’ll tell her during her next break.”

Sehun pauses, and then nods. 

“Alright, can’t believe I’m saying this, but thanks. I’ll be leaving now, please shove a pencil in your eye or something while I’m gone-” 

“Oh no, you can’t leave, you still owe me that favour.”

Sehun blinks. 

“What-”

Zitao reaches out to touch Sehun’s shoulder, but Sehun swats his hand away. 

“Come on, I’m cashing in my favour now.” 

Sehun’s too taken aback to say anything, so he follows Zitao out into the hallway. As soon as they’re out of everyone else’s line of sight, however, Zitao grabs Sehun’s hair and tugs, steering him, and Sehun staggers along, bent awkwardly, heat pooling in his stomach. He knows what this means. 

There’s an almost inconspicuous door down the hallway, and Zitao shoves Sehun through it. It’s small, a supply closet. There’s just enough space for the two of them. As soon as Zitao steps through, he uses his grip on Sehun’s hair to twist him around and press him against the door. One hand goes up to lock the door, while the other stays tugging at Sehun’s hair. 

Sehun feels Zitao’s body up against him, feels Zitao’s mouth near his ear, and he has to hold back a groan, face squished against the door.

“Are you okay with this?”, Zitao whispers. Even though he could nitpick all the many flaws in Huang Zitao, Sehun’s willing to begrudgingly admit that at least he always asks for consent. 

“Just get this over with,” mumbles Sehun. That’s a yes, and Zitao knows it. 

Zitao laughs, and Sehun feels shivers run down his spine. He’s suddenly being tugged away from the door, and before he knows it, he’s been pushed down on his knees. He looks up, trying his best to glare up at Zitao, but his breath catches when he sees Zitao staring down at him, smug and imposing. 

“You know what you have to do.” 

Yes, Sehun does know, and he’d be lying if he said his mouth and dick didn’t like the idea. He tries to stop his mouth from watering as he reaches up to undo Zitao’s jean button. He lets his tongue slip out and licks his bottom lip as he pulls down Zitao’s zipper, making sure to let his fingers ghost over the telltale bulge. Zitao lets out a throaty laugh, and Sehun shudders as he pulls his jeans and boxers down, letting Zitao’s half hard dick spring out. Sehun stares at it for a second, at perfect eye level, before he leans forward slightly and gives the tip a teasing lick. 

Zitao hums, and Sehun can feel it run through his body. He gives the tip another lick, pushing more this time. One hand of his rests on Zitao’s thigh while the other starts stroking Zitao’s dick, occasionally reaching up to fondle his balls. Zitao’s hands tangle in Sehun’s hair again as Sehun lets Zitao’s dick slip into his mouth, just slightly. 

Sehun withdraws for a second, before going back in, licking a thick stripe down the underside of Zitao’s dick. Zitao lets out the first moan, slightly tugging on Sehun’s hair. Sehun does it a few more times, and then stops, looking up to see Zitao staring down at him, breathing heavily. His hand comes back to start stroking Zitao’s dick slowly, occasionally pressing his thumb on the tip, eliciting a sharp breath. 

“Yeah,” Zitao breathes out. “Like that.” 

Sehun pauses, looks at Zitao, then at his dick, and then back at Zitao, before suddenly deepthroating him, maintaining eye contact all the while. Zitao tugs on his hair again, a lot harder, and Sehun moans around his dick. He hollows out his cheeks and starts bobbing his head, going as far along Zitao’s dick as he can, eyes glossed over as he stares up at Zitao. 

Sehun almost falls into a rhythm, until Zitao grabs his hair and tugs him forward, causing Sehun to gag around his dick. It’s hot and heavy, and Sehun’s choking. He’d say it was uncomfortable, but in reality, it’s making him hard as fuck, because he loves it, loves how it feels. He strains to keep his eyes open and look up at Zitao, trying to seem defiant, though that’s hard to do when you’re choking on someone’s dick and have glossy eyes. 

Zitao’s fucking into his mouth now, letting his head tilt back as he indulges in Sehun’s warm, wet mouth. Sehun’s completely lost control, letting Zitao have his way. 

“You know,” Zitao gasps. “As much as I hate you, you feel-  _ fuck _ , you feel so good.” 

Sehun hums around his dick and then Zitao’s cumming down his throat. Sehun swallows, not particularly because he wants to (though he’s not against it) but because staining the floor or his  _ very  _ expensive clothes would probably be a bad idea.

Zitao sighs, hands still in Sehun’s hair, and slips out of Sehun’s mouth with a lewd pop. Sehun stays on his knees while Zitao pulls his trousers back up, until he suddenly finds himself being pulled up again, vision hazy as he stares at Zitao smiling smugly at him. 

“Look at you,” and Sehun’s not exactly sure what Zitao is talking about until he feels Zitao’s hand pressing against his crotch. “Hard just from blowing me. What are you, fifteen?” 

Sehun tries to think of a snappy comeback, but ends up moaning instead as Zitao presses harder. 

“Too bad I can’t help you out, or else you’d owe me again,” whispers Zitao, still stroking Sehun’s clothed dick. “I have to go now, duty calls. Don’t die on your way home, as much as your existence grates on mine, I do enjoy these little…  _ favours _ .”

Sehun moans again, more of a whine, but Zitao is already gone, door swinging open, then shut. He backs up and leans against the wall, trying to catch his breath, hoping his boner will subside soon. He pulls out his phone. 

Time to book another Uber. 

\---

Sehun’s convinced that the root of every problem in his life is either Huang Zitao or Kim Jongin. In this case, it happens to be both of them.

Sehun had been doing exactly what he had intended to, eating pizza and watching  _ The Notebook _ , crying when the rain kiss happened, because he knows how this movie ends, when a little voice in his head that sounded exactly like Kim Jongin whispered something along the lines of “that could be you and Zitao, you know”. This, of course, is a horrible thought, because as much as Sehun would like to be picked up in the rain and kissed, anything involving Huang Zitao is instantly horrible. 

Sehun’s so disturbed by this that he drops his slice of pizza on his bed. He stares at it. The pizza doesn’t stare back, a lack of eyes making that slightly improbable. Sehun sighs, and pauses the movie, removing the pizza off the bed and glumly thinking about how he has to wash his IKEA sheets,  _ again. _

Stupid fucking Jongin talking about stupid fucking Huang Zitao in his head.

\---

Monday morning, Sehun’s sitting in the meeting room, way before anyone else arrives, laptop open and neatly highlighted cue cards near him. From the way he’s settled, posture perfect and face blank, no one would assume that he slept through the entirety of Sunday after a Ryan Gosling binge and four pizzas. This, of course, is thanks to his stellar reputation, and his excellent under eye cream. Sehun hasn’t had a sleep schedule since college, but his under eye cream has been with him and his skincare routine for longer, keeping dark circles away for years. 

Zitao is the second one through the door, and he takes the seat farthest from Sehun. Sehun sizes him up, and decides that he could use some under eye cream. Obviously, Sehun isn’t going to offer it to him, he imports that stuff from France, he’s not wasting it on Zitao. 

“Ready for the end of quarter presentations?” 

It’s Zitao, and Sehun doesn’t bother looking up from his laptop, where he’s tweaking away last minute adjustments for his end quarter figure reports. His figures, as always, are in the green, marketing is bringing in a big boom, and he’s had this presentation done for weeks. Sehun’s not much of a speaker, but he can smugly report figures pretty well. 

“I’m ready to tell you to go fuck yourself, Huang.” 

Sehun can hear Zitao laugh, and he can feel it through the table too. Their tables are flimsy, it’s a wonder they survive Sehun being thrown on them. 

“Now, why would I do that when I have  _ you _ to fuck?” 

Sehun looks up sharply, ready to retort, but just then his boss walks in. Mr. Kim. 

“Ah, Sehun, you’re here! Good, good, I wanted to thank you for getting my analyst work done.” 

Sehun smiles pleasantly, nodding in acknowledgement. He moves to say something, but Junmyeon continues talking when he sees Zitao. 

“And Zitao! This is perfect, both of you right here. Me and Yifan- I mean, Mr. Wu were talking, and we wanted to-” 

Yifan, or Mr. Wu as Mr. Kim Junmyeon had corrected himself, was the managerial director that had referred the analyst to Mr. Kim on Friday. He was also Mr. Kim’s husband. Everyone knew, but for some reason the two of them kept pretending to be work friends. Incidentally, Mr. Kim is interrupted by Mr. Wu walking in, with the rest of the high ranking officials scurrying in behind him. Zitao and Sehun are the most junior executives in the room, but access to these meetings is what they get for being on top of the game. 

“We’ll talk later,” says Junmyeon, flashing them a quick smile before rushing to his seat. 

The meeting passes smoothly enough, and Sehun only makes a jab at Zitao once for not having retained thirteen percent of new clients. An eighty seven percent retention rate is almost unheard of, but Sehun doesn’t care about that. 

By the time it’s over, Sehun’s packing up, until he notices that him, Zitao, and both of their bosses are the only ones left, and they’re all sitting. 

“Oh no, sit down Sehun, me and Junmyeon wanted to talk to the two of you,” says Yifan, receiving a glare from Junmyeon for using his first name. It’s the weirdest shit, Sehun still doesn’t get why they pretend not to know each other. Yifan proposed at the annual year end cocktails, for fucks sake. 

Sehun gingerly sits down, looking over curiously at Junmyeon, who nods patiently at him. 

“So, as you both know, you’re both the top performers for both of our departments,” says Yifan. “I’ve been talking to the CEO and the board of directors, and they’ve been encountering some issues. I thought over it, consulted Junmyeon- sorry, Mr. Kim, and we both decided to put you on it.” 

“I’m not sure I understand,” and for once Sehun is inclined to agree with Huang Zitao. 

Junmyeon sighs, leaning forward. 

“As you know, Zitao, all the senior VPs are tied up with the Japan clients, and you’re our best junior VP, and Sehun’s our most lucrative marketing executive-”

“I am aware of that, Mr. Kim, but I don’t understand what task you have slated for us.”

Yifan steps back into the conversation, clearing his throat. 

“We want you both to come up with a way to cut out as much bureaucracy as you can. Cut the red tape, as it were. Right now, we’re drowning in it.” 

There’s silence in the room as the weight of what Yifan says sinks in. 

Sehun has to take a second to blink, to process this, because there’s no way the managerial director just simply told them to  _ cut out the bureaucracy. _ It’s an investment firm, for fucks sake, bureaucracy is only second to coffee in terms of necessity. Zitao looks just as taken aback, so Sehun takes a deep breath.

“So you want us- junior associates- to solve a business problem that hardly anyone has been able to solve till date?” 

Junmyeon laughs. 

“You say junior associates like you’re children, Sehun. Me and Yifan both agree that you have the potential to do this. It’s not much, come up with a few solutions, stick them in a presentation and show them off to the board next month. If they like them, we’ll implement it. We’ll see how it goes, look at next quarter’s results.” 

“Oh, okay,” says Sehun, and he’s not usually sarcastic with higher ups but the fact that he’s been handed an impossible task along with someone he  _ hates _ is grating on his nerves. “You want us to solve a business problem that hardly anyone has been able to solve till date, in a  _ month?” _

Yifan sighs, pulling out a pen and fiddling with it. 

“Have more faith in yourself, Sehun. Zitao, you’ve been quiet, what do you think?” 

“With all due respect Mr. Wu, perhaps we should take mine and Mr. Oh’s history into account. It’s not a secret that we aren’t exactly on the best terms-” 

“Ah, yes, yes, of course, you both have your petty rivalry thing going on.”

Both Zitao and Sehun look down sheepishly when Yifan says that. Just because it’s petty doesn’t mean it’s not valid.

“But doesn’t the company’s framework ascend that?” 

“It does, but I still don’t understand what you need us to do,” Sehun says. “Do we just start to get rid of the mandated paperwork?” 

Yifan regards him carefully. 

“Well,” he says, carefully poised, “your job is to make sure the board doesn’t have to sign a million different documents a day. If that means getting rid of a few forms, sure, go for it.”

There’s silence again, and Junmyeon’s phone buzzes. He glances at it and then nudges Yifan. 

“We have to go,” explains Junmyeon as both of them stand to leave. “I expect you two will do your best.” 

Zitao opens his mouth at the same time as Sehun, but neither of them get to say anything before Yifan cuts in. 

“Oh, also. Sehun, you might want to take your stuff down to Zitao’s office for the next month. You’ll need to work together, and Mr. Huang’s office is more spacious than yours, considering he doesn’t have an unhealthy fake house plant obsession.”

They scrabble out of their chairs to contest this statement, but Yifan and Junmyeon are already walking down the hallway. 

“Mr. Wu!”, Sehun calls out, but it’s futile. 

He sighs, avoiding Zitao’s gaze, and rests his head on the door. 

Complaining about red tape? What was the board  _ thinking? _

\---

Of course, the board was  _ not  _ thinking. The board, in fact, had no idea about this “project” that Zitao and Sehun had been assigned at all. 

In actuality, this entire scheme had been cooked up by Junmyeon and Yifan, over Saturday evening while eating popcorn and watching reruns of  _ The Good Wife.  _

“Hey, Myeon,” Yifan had whispered, nudging his husband in the stomach. 

“Shut up, Yifan, I’m trying to figure out how this will end.”

“We should do something about Zitao and Sehun.”

This, of course, had grabbed Junmyeon’s attention almost instantly. Zitao and Sehun would be an unstoppable team if they worked together, and if they had to force them to do so, so be it. It had taken fifteen minutes till they came up with the brilliant idea of setting both of them on an unsolvable problem together. Best case, they learn to work together, worst case, they get humiliated and learn a lesson. 

Win-win. 

\---

However, this definitely isn’t a win for any of the stationery in Zitao’s office, because the second Sehun brings the box with all his essentials upstairs to Finance, he grabs a pencil off Zitao’s desk and snaps it. 

“Hey, what the fuck-”

Sehun doesn’t respond, tossing the pencil in the trash as he storms across the room, pacing, face angrily blank. Zitao stays where he is, leaning against his desk.

“Do you make it a habit to break other people’s pencils or-“

“Shut up, I’m in the middle of raging.”

“And  _ why _ exactly are you raging? I mean, believe me, I’m not happy with these arrangements, but there’s no reason to murder my stationery over it. It’s not like this is the most important thing in our lives, we can put up some half assed ways off of Forbes and-” 

Sehun stops pacing, turning to Zitao, eyebrows furrowed. 

“Don’t you get it, Huang? This is a test. They wanna see if they can lay us off.” 

Zitao snorts.

“Yeah, as if.”

“Don’t believe me?”, asks Sehun, arching his eyebrow. “The last time Junmyeon gave someone a project and they fucked it up, they got fired.”

“This isn’t the same-“

“Listen up, Mr. Finance, Marketing is a bloodbath. We don’t have the privilege of being self assured because we went to business school. I know a lay-off ploy when I see one, and this is it.”

Zitao shakes his head.

“You’re being ridiculous, we’re their best employees.”

“And they know we know that. Once an employee knows their value, that value instantly becomes a variable in the game.”

Zitao rolls his eyes, turning away before turning back to face Sehun. He reaches out, brushing his knuckles across Sehun’s neck. 

“Is that concealer?” 

Sehun stares at him, mouth open. 

“This is  _ not  _ the time-“

“You need to learn how to blend better. Concealer should hide your hickies, not draw attention to them. Put a cold compress on it, the bruise fades quicker.”

“How are you so casual about this? We’re on our way to losing our jobs and you’re giving me hickey advice- which, by the way, I wouldn’t need if you learnt how to control your fucking mouth.”

Zitao grins.

“Don’t act like you don’t love it.”

Something seems to snap in Sehun’s eyes, and he surges forward, hands on Zitao’s collar.

“Listen up,” he says, their faces centimeters away. “Take this seriously.”

Zitao doesn’t respond, gaze flicking down to Sehun’s lips and back up. Sehun breathes shakily as they stare at each other.

“Bad, bad news, Huang,” he whispers. “One of us is going to lose.”

“It’s not a competition,” says Zitao, licking his lips as Sehun presses closer, till there’s next to no space between them.

Sehun laughs snidely.

“This is SM, everything is a fucking competition. They’re going to pin it on one of us if we fail, and then that’s it.”

They let that hang in the air for a split second before they’re kissing, fast and rough. It’s messy, and when Zitao bites on Sehun’s lip it hurts, but that’s just how it goes everytime. Zitao hitches one of Sehun’s legs up and turns them around, and Sehun stumbles backwards, sandwiching himself between the desk and Zitao. 

Sehun reaches out and sharply snaps Zitao’s shirt buttons off, two of them going flying in his hurry.

“Do you just enjoy sewing your buttons on again and again?”, he asks.

Zitao doesn’t answer, too busy nibbling on Sehun’s neck.

When Zitao pushes Sehun backwards, he’s greeted with a smooth surface to lay flat on. Maybe having the project happen in Zitao’s office was a good idea, because his desk is clean, much cleaner than Sehun’s.

At least Sehun doesn’t have to worry about spinal issues due to a Hello Kitty pen while being fucked.

\---

Not very surprisingly, they refuse to do the  _ collaboration  _ part of this whole impromptu project they’ve been given. Zitao sits at his desk and Sehun sits at his coffee table-couch set up, occasionally glancing at Zitao with all the contempt he can muster. On the off chance Zitao catches his eyes, Sehun is greeted by a pleasant smile and Zitao’s middle finger. Sehun shakes it off and comes back to where he’s trying to get rid of at least  _ one  _ document without having to upset their whole processing system. 

Sehun leaves early for the first three days, because even though he lives fifteen minutes away, the streets aren’t exactly the safest, so he prefers to take an Uber. Only problem, Ubers don’t tend to run from SM after 10 pm. When Sehun leaves, Zitao just gives him a cursory glance and then goes back to the pile of blank documents he’s trying to assess. 

The third day of the whole set-up, they begrudgingly decide to confer their notes and see what progress they’ve made. This, in retrospect, is what is generally considered a bad move, or in this case, the catalyst to further plot, because Sehun takes one look at Zitao’s recommendations and throws them right in his face. 

“What the f-” 

“Are you insane?” 

Zitao splutters, looking at the file folder on the floor and the papers strewn everywhere. 

“Am  _ I  _ insane?  _ I’m  _ not the one who seems to have a grudge against my stationery!” 

Sehun’s really not in the mood for this, and he has to stop himself from slapping Zitao. Physical altercations of the violent kind between employees are usually frowned upon. 

“You want to get rid of Marketing Requirements documents? Do you want the department to crumble?” 

“A memo would work much better than a full process-” 

“There is a process because there needs to be a process! We have teams of people on the same projects, do you know how hard it is to make sure every single one of them is up to date with target audiences and special directives? Marketing will fall apart if you-” 

Zitao cuts in. 

“Alright, if you’re so fucking smart, what do you have?” 

Sehun shoves him the scrap of notebook paper where he’s scribbled all his final suggestions. It looks like a high schooler’s homework in comparison to Zitao’s well organised file folder, but where Zitao is pretentious, Sehun is efficient. 

Zitao flicks his eyes over the paper, his eyebrows rising higher and higher with every single thing he reads. He hands it back to Sehun. 

“No,” he says, simply, adjusting his suit jacket. 

“No?”, repeats Sehun, tone getting steadily angrier. “What do you mean, “No”?”

“ _ I mean,  _ if we do what you want to, we’ll get  _ sued. _ ”

“Oh, come on, as if your edits don’t open us up to that as well.” 

Zitao huffs. 

“You really can’t expect us to get rid of registers of all things. Just because you aren’t in Finance-” 

“No, Mr. Huang, just because  _ you  _ are in Finance-”

“Listen, we clearly have a difference of opinion, but unfortunately, I’ve already spent all the time I put aside today for banging my head against a wall, so if you could fuck off, that’d be great.”

Voices are raised, fingers are pointed, lips are glanced down at. Normal, average workplace rival things. It’s when Sehun starts yelling that Junmyeon walks in. 

“Mr. Huang, Mr. Oh-” 

Both Zitao and Sehun are currently pointing vaguely threatening objects at each other. Zitao has his glass paperweight in his hands while Sehun has a dangerously sharp looking uncapped fountain pen. With Junmyeon’s appearance though, they let their hands fall to their sides and turn to greet him.

“Uh, Mr. Kim-”, Sehun starts. Junmyeon isn’t having any of it. 

“What are the two of you doing? The complaints about the noise almost reached HR, is there a problem?” 

“Mr. Kim, it’s nothing, we were just having a mild disagreement-”

Zitao tries, but even his smug smile and smooth tone are useless in the face of a ruffled Junmyeon. 

“If it was a “mild disagreement”, tell me why I was getting complaints from a floor above?” 

Sehun takes a deep breath. He’s dealt with Junmyeon before. He can do this.

“We were just comparing our notes, and things got a bit out of hand. I promise it won’t happen again.”

Junmyeon looks at him. 

“I should hope not.” Then, his eyebrows furrow. “What do you mean comparing notes?” 

“Well, uh, me and Zitao decided to split our work and then periodically compare notes-” 

Junmyeon shakes his head. 

“We  _ told  _ you both to work  _ together. _ ” 

He looks disappointed. This is bad.

Sehun doesn’t have time to say anything before Junmyeon is speaking again. 

“Do not give me more reasons to come up here again. There will be consequences.”

Junmyeon’s gone before either of them can open their mouths. Sehun sighs as Zitao rubs his forehead with his hand. 

“You hear that? Consequences. We’re gonna get fired.” 

“You don’t know that.” 

Zitao doesn’t sound too sure of himself. 

“Please, one more fuckup and we’re out the door. This is all your fault, if you’d just been professional-”

“Professional? You’re talking to me about being professional? You, Oh Sehun, the guy who threw my well organized file folder in my face?” 

“Oh boohoo, did you get a papercut?”

Zitao wheels around to fully face him and grabs Sehun’s wrist, tugging him in, grip tight. 

“If you don’t behave, I don’t see any reason for me to.” 

“Is your job a good enough reason?” 

Sehun resists the urge to take the fountain pen and flick it so that Zitao’s YSL three piece gets covered in black ink, and jerks his hand out of Zitao’s hold. Zitao adjust his cuffs and glares at him. 

“You’re insufferable.” 

Sehun ignores him.

\---

Sehun’s sitting on the couch, desolately staring at the useless papers in front of him listing why finance should get rid of registers when Zitao’s hand enters his field of vision. Sehun looks up at him, and is greeted with Zitao in his loosened tie shoving a glass of whiskey towards him. 

“What?”, he asks, tone snippy. 

“A peace offering,” says Zitao, putting the glass down on the table. He sits down across from Sehun on the couch, and puts out his own glass. “We need to work together, as made very clear today. It’s not going to be fun, but we can at least make it bearable.”

Sehun sighs and then picks up the glass from the table, clinking it against Zitao’s. He tips the glass back, drinking all of it at once. Clearly, Zitao likes his whiskey neat. It takes a few seconds for it to kick in, but then Sehun’s coughing, and his throat is on  _ fire. _

“Oh, no, that’s a sipping whiskey,” Zitao says, and Sehun can hear the grimace in his voice. 

“Yeah,” he coughs out. “Thanks, I figured.” 

Zitao laughs, and it’s only slightly less sarcastic than the way he usually laughs with Sehun around. 

“I just didn’t want you think I’d poisoned you.” 

Sehun looks up sharply at him. 

“That seems very likely.”

“Oh no, if I had to get rid of you I’d strangle you. I’ve seen how you squirm when I get near your neck, sweetheart,” Zitao says, and Sehun could swear that he’s winking. 

Sehun resists the urge to smash his glass over Zitao’s head. 

“Stop calling me sweetheart, or I swear-”

“No comment on the choking thing?”

“You know, for someone who says he wants peace, you’re not doing a lot to keep it,” says Sehun, carefully gripping his empty glass, still trying not to cough from the slightly less intense burning in his throat. 

“Ah, my apologies for not living up to your standards as a peacemaker,” Zitao says, crossing his legs as he sips his whiskey. “But seriously, what do you say? We can at least  _ try _ and work together on this weird fucking  _ thing _ they’ve assigned us.” 

He thinks about it. Being told to find a way to cut down red tape was weird and stupid enough already, so why  _ not  _ make peace with Huang Zitao? If Sehun’s being honest, it’s been so long that he doesn’t even remember what hideous, horrid thing Zitao had done. In fact, he’s pretty sure Zitao had just smiled at him, and Sehun’s internal fuckboy sirens had gone off. It wasn’t really a justification for their subsequent enmity, but then again, the biggest things start from the smallest places. 

“Fine,” he sighs. “We’ll work together.” 

They clink their glasses together again, Sehun’s empty one bumping against Zitao’s.

“And hope fills the air,” announces Zitao, overly grandiose for an audience of one.

Sehun snorts. 

“Nah, that’s just the alcohol.”

Zitao smirks at him and raises his glass.

“Even better.”

\---

Sehun’s already slightly drunk, the whiskey kicking in, when he checks his watch. 

“Fuck,” he mumbles. It’s eleven thirty. 

“What’s up?”, Zitao asks from across the room where he’s cleaning up his desk. He seems to be taking this peace thing seriously. Junmyeon storming in had thrown them off their game and they’d both sat on opposite sides of the room doing nothing until he’d proposed them working together. Since then, he’s been cordial. Nice, even. He’s not being a dick, and that’s massively disorienting for Sehun. 

“I- uh, getting home is going to be an issue, it’s past Uber time. None of them run near the company at this time.”

“Isn’t your apartment like ten minutes away?” 

Sehun raises an eyebrow at him. 

“How do you know that?”

Zitao laughs, and it’s an actual genuine laugh this time, slightly high pitched. It sounds nice. 

“It’s because I stalk you everyday. I have a collection of your hair and-”

“Okay, okay, shut up. I  _ could  _ walk home, but my street is known for muggings, and I’m kinda tipsy right now-”

“You’re tipsy from  _ one  _ drink?” 

“If you’re here to judge me, I’ll just-” 

Sehun’s cut off by Zitao, hurriedly shaking his head. 

“No, no, I’m not judging you. If you want, I could walk you home?” 

Sehun blinks. That’s definitely not what he expected. 

“What’re you going to do,” he snorts, “Hit anyone who tries to mug us with your precious Valentino briefcase?”   
  


He plays it off sarcastically, but he knows Zitao is startlingly strong, if the way he’s able to toss Sehun around like he weighs nothing means anything. He has nice muscles too, and Sehun’s sorta drifting off until Zitao’s voice cuts through his haze. 

“If you don’t want that, you could just say so, you know? No need to come for my choice in briefcases.” 

“No, I mean-”

_ Cordial,  _ he reminds himself.  _ Keep it cordial. _

“That would be nice of you, if you could do that.” 

Zitao looks slightly taken aback at this, regarding Sehun careful. 

“Wow, you really  _ are  _ tipsy.” 

Sehun rolls his eyes and reaches for his coat, shaking his head. 

“You know what, I’ve changed my mind, I’ll go it alone,” he says, stalking out of the room as quickly as he can in his (only slightly) inebriated state. He hears scrambling from inside the office. 

“Wait up!”, Zitao yells as he jogs after him. “I’m not gonna let you get killed on the street, I’d rather not face Junmyeon and Yifan alone.” 

Zitao passes in front of him and starts walking backwards, giving Sehun that stupid charming smile he gave him the first time they met, the one that caused Sehun to meet a million different conclusions about him at the same time, the one that made him peg Zitao as an arrogant dickbag. He’d been right. Of course he’d been right. Right?

It’s been a while since he’s seen that smile.

\---

Sehun wakes up on the floor, bundled in his blankets. He’d probably rolled over in his sleep. He checks his phone. 7:30 am. He groans. He’s supposed to go in early today, which means he’ll not have time to grab his coffee or even bubble tea.

Sehun gets ready, and it’s in the middle of his shower that he realises that he has no recollection of actually getting into bed. He remembers getting out of the office building and walking silently along with Zitao, but the actual memory of getting into his house is blurry. All he remembers is tripping through the front door (he’s a lightweight, it fucking happens) and Zitao’s arms steadying him. 

He shakes the thought out of his head at the same time as he shakes the water out of his hair.

Cordial does not mean smitten, he reminds himself. 

\---

If there’s one thing Sehun hates- sorry, politely dislikes, he has to be cordial- more than Zitao, it’s the stupid door going into his office. The door to Sehun’s office is a simple glass door, easy to use. It pushes and pulls both ways. It’s a good door, Sehun likes it quite a bit. The door to Zitao’s office, however, is heavy wood, and it only pushes in, and since it’s old it gets caught a lot, like it has today. 

Sehun’s struggling to push the door open, but it keeps catching. He sighs, and looks through the peephole (seriously, why would an office door need a peephole? Who made the architecture decisions?), on the off chance that if Zitao was inside, he could open the door from there. Sehun’s shifting to get a better view of Zitao’s desk when an arm snakes past him and lightly shoves the door open.

Sehun turn around to find Zitao standing behind him. Of course. 

“How’d you-” 

“You just have to find the right spot to push, it’ll work itself out.” 

Sehun rolls his eyes as he walks in. There’s something that naturally irritates him when Zitao does something right, a sense he’s developed over a long, long time of hating him. It doesn’t help that he’s not had coffee yet. 

Sehun makes his way towards his couch, before he remembers that they’re supposed to be working  _ together  _ now. He stands awkwardly in the middle of the office as Zitao takes his chair behind his desk, fiddling with his sleeve. 

“You know,” says Zitao as he settles in his chair. “You get really drunk, really fast. We were halfway to your house before you started trying to rap to Hamilton.” 

“I did  _ not- _ ”

“And then you almost faceplanted into your own welcome rug- it’s a lovely rug, by the way- which meant I had to carry you to bed.” 

Sehun freezes. 

“You what?” 

“I carried you to your room because you wouldn’t stop tripping. You’re lucky we’d decided on the truce or whatever, or I’d have left you on your carpet.”

Sehun doesn’t know how to respond.

“I didn’t get to pick up my bubble tea or my iced coffee today, so I don’t have nearly enough caffeine in my body to deal with this right now.”

“Don’t you have that intern? The one that walked in on us, what’s his name? Jongdae? No, no- Jongin! Yeah, that’s him.”

Sehun rolls his eyes before deciding to plop his stuff on the chairs right in front of Zitao’s desk, the clients chairs, and takes a seat. 

“Firstly, he’s my assistant, not an intern, he actually gets paid.”

Zitao winces. 

“Oh yeah, we don’t pay most of our interns, do we? We really are evil.” 

Sehun nods in agreement before moving on.

“Anyways, Jongin’s on leave, and interns always fuck up my order. I mean, how hard can a triple mocha Frappuccino with variable shots of espresso and pumps of caramel be to order? Hell, I’d even settle for chocolate bubble tea-” 

Sehun looks up and meets Zitao’s eyes, and Zitao’s staring at him with a strange look on his face, and Sehun can’t really place it. He decides it’s judgement, and he shuts up. Zitao gives him the weird look for a few more seconds until he realises Sehun is done talking. 

“Alright then,” he says, sitting up and bringing out a bunch of files. “We should probably start work.” 

For some reason, the thought of Zitao carrying him to his bedroom is lingering in his head. Zitao probably would have rather dragged him face first through the house, but Sehun can’t stop but think of the memory of warm arms steadying him and scooping him up. Zitao hands him a file. 

Sehun shakes himself out of it.

\---

“So,” Sehun whispers out as Zitao mouths at his neck. “What part of our work did we finish today?” 

Zitao nips at the skin just below Sehun’s mole. 

“Officially, we’ve sifted through and outlined all paperwork hitting the equity partners. Really though, we’ve just wasted our time.” 

Sehun lets out a quiet gasp as Zitao moves down to his collarbones, shifting slightly in Zitao’s lap.

“And fucking twice? Was that a waste of time?” 

Zitao pauses to consider, Sehun’s hands in his hair and his mouth on Sehun’s skin. 

“Since it’s you I’m fucking, yeah, pretty much.” 

“God, I hate you-”, says Sehun, pausing to grind down in Zitao’s lap and throw his head back. “- _ so much. _ ”

“Aw, I thought this truce would fix everything for us. Don’t you like me now, Hunnie? Don’t you like me now that I’m being nice?” 

“Knock it off with the nicknames,” Sehun gasps out, tugging Zitao’s hair to pull their faces together. They kiss, messy as always. The truce hasn’t done much to affect the  _ hate  _ part of the hate sex. 

“Why?”, Zitao whispers as he pulls away from the kiss, the hairs on the back of Sehun’s neck tingling as his lips graze his ear. “Does it annoy you?  _ Hun-ah? _ ”

Sehun considers leaving just to prove the “don’t call me that” point, and starts to shift, but then Zitao’s groping his ass and Sehun groans, gripping Zitao’s shoulders as hard as he can, hard enough to hurt. The message is clear; he’s staying put.

“Let me waste our time some more,” Zitao mumbles with his teeth against Sehun’s jaw. Sehun puts his hand on Zitao’s chest and pushes. 

Zitao goes willingly.

\---

Sehun finds the spot to push on the door, the next day, triumphantly grinning, only to find Zitao already at his desk, head quietly bent over a pile of what looks like legal documents. Zitao looks up as Sehun walks over. 

“Uh, hey,” he says, and his tone is still slightly guarded, but it’s starting to loosen up. “I’m just going through our legal obligations, see which types of documents we need to keep in circulation.” 

Sehun nods in understanding, setting his briefcase down as he pulls some of the documents from Zitao’s pile towards him. He rolls his sleeves back, ready to get to work. 

That’s when he notices the chocolate bubble tea at his side of the desk.

\---

The next week is a haze of sorting out piles of documents that run in the company and trying to sift through them without upsetting the entire chain of service or breaking the law, staring listlessly at documents, arguing about documents, and then fucking on top of said documents. Everytime it seems like this is it, the truce is over, they’re going to murder each other over paperwork, Zitao pulls Sehun into his lap, or Sehun tugs Zitao’s tie and kisses him. 

They get along. It kind of feels like a tear in the fabric of reality to say that, but when they aren’t consumed in eternal hatred, they seem to agree on quite a few things, including the ridiculousness of their situation and food and the weather. Sehun finds out that Zitao has two dogs and suddenly Sehun notices the occasional dog hair on Zitao’s expensive suits, as if he hugs his dogs before he leaves for work. 

Zitao, it seems, also has a habit of listening to music when he gets stressed. The first time they look back at a document they file as disposable, they find that it would upset the entire chain of communication in Finance. Sehun just sighs and shakes his head, but Zitao bends and pulls out a bluetooth speaker. 

“What’s that?”, Sehun asks, massaging his temples. “Are you going to play Bach or something?” 

Zitao presses a button, and the speaker starts off with a purposeful piano melody. He turns to Sehun, as if questioning his sanity.

“Bach? I’m stressed out, why would I listen to Bach?”

Sehun stares at him, rightfully confused about the force with which Zitao says it. Zitao sighs, and waves his hand. 

“Bach is… cyclical, more mathematical. Bach invoked logic when he composed and I don’t want that right now. No, Rachmaninoff-” he pauses, gesturing to the speaker- “is more anthemic. More elevation and emotion. Gives you a sense of direction.” 

Sehun raises his eyebrows at Zitao. It seems that he’s well versed in it. Rather passionate about it too. Zitao laughs at the expression on Sehun’s face and looks down.

“I was a- uh, in college, my minor was music theory. The only reason I stayed in college, if I’m being honest. I hated business school, music kept me going.” 

The admission lies heavy in the air, and Sehun scrambles to find something to say. It seems Zitao has trusted him with this, so Sehun only finds it right to allow him a little trust as well.

“I used to dance,” he blurts out. “When I was getting my degree, I mean. I had a dance group.” 

Zitao looks at him curiously. 

“You do have a dancer’s body,” he says, and Sehun rolls his eyes and looks away in response. 

A few seconds later though, Sehun steals a glance at Zitao. He’s smiling.

It looks genuine.

\---

“Why do you hate me?”, Zitao asks, insurance papers in hand.

“Excuse me?”

Zitao turns to Sehun and adjusts the stupid fake glasses he showed up with. 

“Our whole hating each other thing. That’s your fault. You were so snappy to me when I introduced myself, that’s the only reason I snapped back. If you’d just been nice the first day we met, we’d probably have been friends. Why?”

“I-“

Sehun thinks back to the first time they met. Zitao had shown up in a three piece Lanvin, leaning against his desk and smiling smugly as he stuck out his hand.

_ “Welcome to SM Enterprises,” he’d said. “I’m Huang Zitao, if you ever need anything-“ _

_ Sehun stares at Zitao’s hand, and then his face, smug smirk plastered over it. _

_ He doesn’t like him. _

“Well?”

Sehun coughs. 

“I, uh-“

“Spit it out, Hun-ah.”

Sehun glares at him. He’s given up on yelling at Zitao about no nicknames.

“I thought you were a fuckboy.”

Sehun says it defensively, arms crossed over his chest as he watches Zitao process it. Zitao’s eyes widen and then he tilts his head to the side slightly, and it’s too reminiscent of a disgruntled puppy for Sehun not to laugh.

“You literally threw water in my face and told me to fuck off on your first day because you thought I was a  _ fuckboy?” _

“Are you not?”

Zitao splutters. He seems offended. Good.

“No, I’m not a goddamn fuckboy, this isn’t high school! Just because you found me hot-“

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” Sehun interrupts.

Zitao smirks at him, pushing his fake glasses up slightly.

Sehun shakes his head at him.

“You are  _ evil _ .”

\---

Before Junmyeon and Yifan had decided to throw them this impossible task, fucking for them had been, for lack of a better word, simple. They’d say they hated each other, they’d get off, and then they’d tell each other to go to hell. Counterintuitive, but simple. 

Now, however, things have started to get a little more complicated. Of course, when they argue, it’s still the same, kissing in lieu of punching, but now there’s moments where Sehun takes a break to stretch his legs, coming up behind Zitao’s chair and starting to massage his shoulders, fingers digging into the muscles just below his neck. Sehun will lean down and start to mouth at Zitao’s jaw, whispering that he should “take a break”, and Zitao doesn’t usually resist.

They don’t address it, but it hangs over their heads, this gentler approach to their relationship, enemies, colleagues, people who like to fuck each other, whatever it is. Zitao smiles genuinely at Sehun now, and Zitao has almost made Sehun laugh once, and it’s getting really hard to remember how much they hate each other. 

Sehun looks over at Zitao who’s walking with his head down, on one of the nights Zitao walks him home. They pass through a streetlight, and the orange glow makes him stand out, and Sehun takes a quiet breath. 

Maybe not hating each other won’t be such a bad thing.

\---

“You’re what?”, Jongin yells, almost inaudible over the pulsing music in the club. They’re out for drinks again, to celebrate the announcement of Jongin’s dance group’s tour. And, of course, Jongin quitting his job as Sehun’s assistant. There’s better things in store for him. 

“We’re working together!”, Sehun yells back, equally loudly, slightly slurring his words. He’s three Jell-O shots down, trying not to think about a few weeks from now when Jongin will have packed his bags and left for the other side of the country. Jongin snorts, and points at him.

“You? You and Mister Finance? Working together?” 

“Don’t sound so surprised,” Sehun pouts. “I can be mature and responsible.” 

“Uh huh, right, and I can tell the difference between nail polish and lipstick. I can’t believe you decided to grow up just as I was leaving.” 

“Shut up.” Sehun snaps, scooping into his fourth Jell-O shot. “We don’t talk about that.” 

“Aw, you’ll miss me.”

“I’ll miss the caffeine you get me. Though I suppose Zitao is getting me that now. Nevermind, you can go, you’ve been replaced.” 

Jongin looks at him like he’s suddenly grown a pair of horns or something. 

“He brings you coffee?” 

“Bubble tea,” Sehun corrects. “Everyday, sitting at my desk. It’s because I kept complaining about my lack of sugary energy via liquid. He does it to shut me up.” 

“Wait- wait, oh my god,” Jongin says, and he’s laughing, and Sehun is starting to get drunk and annoyed. “He buys you  _ bubble tea _ everyday? And you both  _ still _ hate each other?” 

Sehun scoffs. 

“Wait till you hear about him carrying me to bed-” 

Jongin sprays his tequila all over the counter, coughing violently. 

“He  _ what? _ ”

“I was tipsy so he carried me to my room.” 

_ “Why does he know where your room is?” _

Sehun shrugs. 

“You know. He’s been walking me home recently.”

Jongin stares at Sehun, and the look on his face is the same as the one he gave him the day Sehun announced he was going to study Marketing in college.  _ “It’s stupid,”  _ the look tells Sehun.  _ “And mildly insane.”  _

Now that Sehun thinks about it, it does sound fucking insane. If he didn’t know better, he’d almost say Zitao was taking care of him. But of course, he does know better. Zitao doesn’t do anything that doesn’t benefit him. 

“Okay,” says Jongin, finally jolting out of his “are you insane I have an idiot for a best friend” stupor. “He’s been walking you home  _ and  _ getting you bubble tea? And you still insist you hate each other?” 

“People can be nice and still hate each other, Jongin-”, and even as Sehun says it, he realises just how stupid it sounds. 

Jongin shakes his head slowly, and he looks like he’s on the verge of burying his head in his hands and giving up on Sehun. 

“You’re an idiot,” he says finally. 

Sehun just orders another Jell-O shot.

\---

They’re two weeks in and they’ve made next to no progress on wrapping up red tape, when Zitao gets a phone call. 

“Hello? SM Enterprises, Financial Vice President Huang Zitao speaking.” 

Sehun looks up from where he’s trying to figure out if they really  _ need  _ twelve different insurance plans. It’s not often that VPs get calls directly, they’re usually routed through assistant’s who take messages. These past two weeks have been virtual radio silence in between Zitao’s clients and him, for the purposes of the super important impossible project. 

“Chanyeol? Hey, hey, what’s going on? Did Lanyun sneak into your house again?” 

Sehun narrows his eyes at Zitao gesturing at him to cut out the call. He’s still bitter about Zitao grabbing his phone in the middle of a prolonged rant session about Jongin’s dance group and cutting the call. Zitao catches his eye and mouths at him to shut up. Sehun points at all their files and Zitao flips him off. 

“What? No, no- I’m not busy, just a friend being stupid.” 

Sehun freezes, staring at Zitao. Zitao keeps speaking into the phone, but all the words fade into background noise. 

Zitao had just called Sehun a  _ friend. _

Sehun’s still staring at Zitao open mouthed when he hangs up the phone. 

“What, what’s wrong? Do I have spaghetti on my shirt? Because if I do, I swear it’s not my fault. I was about to leave today, and then Kandy flipped over the spaghetti dish on the kitchen island, and then I had to clean up and-”

Zitao isn’t exactly someone who talks to the point where it’s annoying (though everything Zitao does is annoying. Right?), but when it comes to his dogs, it’s best to cut him off before he launches into a tirade of Shakespearean lengths. 

“You called me your  _ friend _ .”

Zitao nods, while moving towards Sehun’s chair, leaning against the desk. 

“Yes, and I also called you stupid, I thought that would balance it out.” 

“We’re friends now?” 

“Uh, I think so? I mean-”

Zitao trails off, and he looks a bit unsure. 

“It’s just… enemies or whatever seems a bit weird now, you know? With the truce and all that. We can still hate each other, that’s okay, but using coworkers is too formal, and rivals is just weird and colleagues who hate each other and also fuck is too long, so friends is a nice middleground.” 

“Friends,” Sehun says, testing out the word. “I still hate you though.”

Zitao smiles. 

\---

It’s the first night Sehun actually talks to Zitao on the walk home.

“Why do you do this?” 

Zitao jolts out of the haze he seems to disappear into every time they walk together. He looks at Sehun, slightly surprised. Slightly something else too, but Sehun can’t read his face. 

“Huh?” 

“Walk me home, I mean. You don’t have to-” 

“No, no. Don’t take it the wrong way, I don’t have the overwhelming urge to be nice to you. I just don’t like that you get to leave early, that’s all.”

“That’s all? You sure?” 

Zitao looks at the sky, hands in his pockets. 

“Yup. One hundred percent.”

\---

“Okay,” Zitao sighs. “That’s it. I officially give up.” 

They’re three days away from their deadline, and they have nothing. They’ve pored over every single form, every tiny bit of mandated paperwork, and none of it is disposable. They remove one document, and it all crumbles. 

Sehun looks up from where he’s had his forehead pressed against the glass of the table, having thrown in the towel three hours ago. 

“Which one of us is going to get fired?”, Zitao asks, idly twirling a pencil around. 

Sehun starts. 

“What do you mean?” 

“Didn’t you tell me this was a competition? A lay off ploy, I think you called it? One of us was going to lose anyways?”

“Oh yeah,” Sehun realises. “Yeah, I did. What do you think?” 

“Both of us? None of us?”

“I hope it’s you.” 

  
Zitao looks at Sehun, offended. 

“That was uncalled for, neither of us figured anything out, why should I be the one who gets fired?” 

Sehun shrugs. 

“You’re dumber than me.” 

Zitao rolls his eyes, but he doesn’t reply. He reaches under his desk, into his drawer, which Sehun now recognises can mean only two things. Music or, and this is the one he’s hoping for, alcohol. 

Sadly, Zitao pulls out that stupid bluetooth speaker. Sehun groans. 

“Seriously? More Rachmaninoff or Liszt or whatever?”, Sehun asks. He’s not going to admit it, but his knowledge of piano classics has vastly increased in the past month. “Whiskey would do a better job with this, you know.” 

Zitao doesn’t pay any attention to him, putting the speaker on and connecting his phone. Soft music crackles through, sounding slightly staticy around the edges as if it’s an old recording. The words start soon after, and it’s a woman, gently singing. In French. 

Sehun took French as an elective in high school, but he hardly remembers any of it. This song, however, he recognises. 

He turns to Zitao, who’s walked off to his left, ready to pester him about his song choice ( “ _ La vie en rose? Seriously?”)  _ when he sees Zitao stick his hand out. It’s the peace offering all over again, except Zitao’s hand is empty, as if beckoning for Sehun to slip his own into Zitao’s grasp. 

Sehun stares at his hand before looking up at Zitao’s face questioningly, while Edith Piaf continues singing in the background. Zitao raises his eyebrows, and Sehun huffs, giving his hand to Zitao. 

Zitao pulls him up, and suddenly his hand is on Sehun’s waist and Sehun has a hand on his chest. They look at each other as Zitao drags them across the floor, swaying in time with the music. Sehun feels his heart speed up as the music slows down, and suddenly he’s very confused as he stares at Zitao’s face because he kinda wants to kiss him but it’s not in the way he usually wants to kiss him. 

Sehun doesn’t know what to do or what to say and the song is still playing, loud enough to drown out any coherent thought, so he just lets his head drop, resting it against Zitao’s shoulder as they pseudo dance/sway across the room, narrowly avoiding the furniture. 

“I still hate you,” Sehun mumbles over the music, into Zitao’s neck, and he’s not sure why he says it because surely Zitao knows by now, but Sehun suspects it’s more for himself to remember. 

“You sure about that?”, Zitao asks, and Sehun freezes, partly because he can feel the rumble in Zitao’s chest and partly because Zitao is right, he isn’t sure about it at all. If you’d asked him a month ago he’d have said yes, of course he’s sure, Huang Zitao is the most hateable man on Earth, but then again, a month ago, he wouldn’t have been slow dancing to romantic French music with Huang Zitao either. 

Sehun guesses it’s because a month ago he didn’t know just how funny Zitao could be, or how kind, or how stupidly charming. A month ago, Sehun had no idea that Zitao is left handed and can’t use scissors without almost poking his own eyes out, had no idea that Zitao has a dog that constantly breaks into his neighbour’s house, had no idea that Zitao likes his coffee black but takes it with milk and sugar in the office because the interns keep forgetting it and he doesn’t have the heart to yell at them. Sehun finds that the more he learns about Zitao, the more he likes him, because Zitao is genuinely likeable and Sehun has no idea why he didn’t like him in the first place. 

That’s the realisation that knocks Sehun breathless, silences him because he’s so shocked, it’s the realisation that doesn’t let Sehun answer Zitao’s question, so they just silently dance as the music crescendos. 

Had someone been peeking in through the unnecessary peephole in Zitao’s door, they’d notice that when Sehun leans in to kiss Zitao, Zitao hesitates for a second before meeting his lips. They’d also notice that the way Zitao runs his hand down Sehun’s side is gentler than usual, just like the way he kisses Sehun’s neck. Softer. 

Of course, no one is at the peephole, and this new gentleness is only for Zitao and Sehun to see, which is why Sehun closes his eyes when Zitao works his way down Sehun’s neck, the quiet noises he makes lost in the last few notes of the song.

He knows it’s there, he just doesn’t want to see it. 

\---

“Will you miss it?”, Zitao asks, setting his glass of whiskey down on the table. 

Sehun looks over at him from where he’s sitting on the couch. The next day is their deadline, and since they gave two days ago, they haven’t done anything. 

“Miss what?”

“This,” Zitao says, gesturing vaguely around the room. “Working with me. Tomorrow after we get yelled at for wasting a month, you don’t have to put up with me anymore.” 

_ Yes. _

“No,” and Sehun winces as he says it, his own voice harsh in his ears. He’s trying to compensate for the stupid thoughts he keeps having. 

Zitao nods, and it’s not like Sehun sees the look of hurt flash on his face, but he feels guilty anyways. 

“Stupid of me to ask,” Zitao laughs. Sehun’s mind is still having traitorous thoughts. 

“When you get fired, you can come work for me,” is what Sehun offers instead. “I have an opening.” 

“I still don’t understand how you’re so sure that I’m the one getting fired,” says Zitao, walking over to the couch. 

“I’m smarter and cuter than you, Junmyeon and Yifan will see that.” 

Sehun looks up, only to find Zitao staring down at him, a small smile playing on his lips. 

“Is that so?”, and the way Zitao says it makes Sehun’s stomach flip over. It’s not the same as it used to be, not the intense hatred punctuated by increasing lust. This is gentleness,  _ longing.  _ Sehun doesn’t want to think about it.

Instead, he reaches up and grabs Zitao’s tie, pulling him down, Zitao’s arms coming down on either side of Sehun’s head to brace himself.

Sehun’s about to lean in to kiss him, to get the thoughts of Zitao laughing and his smile lines and the stupid mole under his eye out of his head, do what’s familiar and pretend that feelings don’t exist, but then Zitao shakes his head.

“No,” Sehun hears him rasp out, and Zitao pulls away, but slowly, slowly, as if it pains him. Sehun feels the fabric of his tie slip out of his fingers. 

“Wh-“, Sehun starts, and he’d be lying if he said he wasn’t a bit hurt. 

“No,” Zitao repeats. “I can’t- not anymore.”

“Why?”, Sehun asks, even though he knows he shouldn’t.

“Because we’re going to go back to hating each other tomorrow. And I don’t think I can keep up with our arrangement anymore.”

“I don’t understand, I-” 

“Forget about it, Sehunnie,” and the nickname doesn’t make Sehun bristle nearly as much as this sudden denial does. Zitao clears his throat while Sehun thinks of something to say. What can he say?  _ Why don’t you wanna fuck me anymore? What the fuck happened this month? _

Zitao coughs. 

“We should, uh, get drinks. I’m leaving early, and I was thinking that we should finish this off properly. One night, and then it all goes back to how it was, no working together. As long as we don’t get fired, that is.”

Sehun fiddles with his sleeve. 

“Okay,” he whispers, and it’s a little too quiet, and Sehun’s beating himself up for saying it that way already, because it sounds like Zitao pulling away has affected him. Which it has, but that’s besides the point. 

“Cool,” Zitao says, shifting his weight from one leg to another, and Sehun realises that maybe he’s not the only one feeling awkward. “I’ll meet you at Electric Kiss at 8?” 

Sehun nods. He doesn’t say anything. 

Five minutes later, Zitao is walking out of the room. He doesn’t say anything either.

\---

Sehun shows up ten minutes late. Not because he didn’t get there soon enough, his Uber had dropped him off just on time, it’s because he’d spent a good few minutes outside, feeling warm even though it’s horribly cloudy, contemplating whether or not to actually go in. 

Sehun finds Zitao leaning against the bar, leather jacket on even though it’s too warm to wear one, already sipping on his usual neat whiskey. Electric Kiss only has the dance floor open on weekends, so today being a Wednesday makes it easier for them to talk. 

“Hey.”

Zitao sees him, and Sehun could swear he smiles like his day has been made, but then the smile is gone, replaced with a simple nod. 

“Hi,” Zitao says, calmly. “What’re you having?”

Sehun gestures to the bartender, who recognizes him, and Sehun knows his usual warm up Jell-O shot is on its way. 

Zitao looks down at his own drink.

“You’re not even going to give me the privilege of getting you your drink?”

Sehun shrugs.

“Would you?”

“No, but-“

Sehun laughs, eyes screwing shut as he leans against the bar. When he opens his eyes, Zitao is staring at him, mouth slightly open. 

“What?”, Sehun asks, smile on his face as he speaks. “What is it?”

“Nothing, I just-“

Zitao looks away and takes a deep breath. 

“You’ve never laughed like that for me. Because of me, I mean.”

Sehun doesn’t know what to say, but he can feel the color rushing to his cheeks. He doesn’t need to see his face in a mirror to know about the light dusting of pink on his face. Hopefully, the lighting is bad enough to cover it up.

Zitao’s still staring at him like that, that same look Sehun hadn’t been able to place all those weeks ago, the one he thought meant judgement. Now, however, it definitely doesn’t feel like he’s being judged. 

Zitao coughs, and then he’s standing straight, pushing away from the bar. 

“I have to go,” he mumbles out. “This was a bad idea anyways.”

Zitao’s walking away, but Sehun can’t let that happen, so he reaches out and grabs Zitao’s sleeve. Zitao turns to look at him, and it’s almost like he’s pleading Sehun to let him go.

“Why are you acting so-“

“Sehun, don’t.”

“No, please, just tell me, why are you acting like this? I mean, you refuse to make out with me even though you clearly wanted to, you called me out for drinks and now you’re leaving? I know we hate each other, but I- I really thought we’d made some progress.”

Zitao looks down at Sehun’s hand on his wrist, and then looks back at Sehun’s face. He sighs. 

“You know, no one should be allowed to look as pretty as you do when you’re drunk and sleepy.” 

Sehun gapes at Zitao, his words not quite registering properly, so Zitao forges on without waiting for a response.

“And no one should be allowed to laugh as adorably as you do, no one should be allowed to make that face you make when you’re concentrating too hard when you screw up your nose, no one should be allowed to do that stupid tapping thing you do with your pens on the table. No one should be allowed to do any of that, but most importantly, someone I’m supposed to hate isn’t allowed to do that,  _ you  _ aren’t allowed to do that.” 

It finally hits Sehun, what Zitao means, what he’s saying. Zitao’s looking at him, searching for a response, but Sehun doesn’t know what to say.

Zitao turns on his heel. 

“Okay, Sehun, I really have to go. Goodnight.” 

Zitao’s rushing out, one foot out the door by the time Sehun actually collects himself to get up and run after him. 

Sehun steps out, head slightly cloudy like the sky had been before he’d walked in, because there’s no way Zitao just said what he think he said. His inner monologue of  _ what the fuck oh my god _ is interrupted by the sudden sheet of water that pours onto him as he walks out. He takes a second to look up, his vision already blurred by his damp hair in his eyes. It’s raining. 

He turns his attention back to the matter at hand. Zitao.

Sehun spots him a few yards away, walking calmly, as if the rain isn’t pelting down on them like it’s taking revenge for some crime the ground didn’t commit. He quickens his pace, but carefully. He doesn’t want to have to deal with an injury, not on top of all the confusing bullshit happening this month.

Zitao’s back is to him, and Sehun is now an arm’s length away. He grabs Zitao’s hand from behind, forcing him to turn around. 

“What do you mean?”, Sehun asks, words tumbling out before he can stop them. He tries not to get distracted by how Zitao’s hair look when they’re wet and plastered across his forehead.

“Sehun, I- Forget about it, it’s-“

Sehun’s grip tightens.

“No, tell me, what exactly do you mean?”

Zitao takes a shaky breath. Sehun can barely hear it over the rain.

“I’m a fucking idiot.”

“I know that, tell me something new.”

Zitao stares at Sehun, smiles bitterly and looks away. He starts to move from Sehun’s grasp, but Sehun’s absolutely soaked and he can barely see, and he’s not letting Zitao walk away.

“Don’t, don’t walk away, I’m sorry. It’s a force of habit, just- talk to me.” 

“I took one look at you tripping over yourself that first night when I walked you home, and it would’ve been so easy for me to leave you on the rug or lead you to the couch but I just  _ couldn’t,  _ even though I’ve spent so long being an asshole to you. I have no idea why, but I looked at you and I wanted to make sure you were okay, that you were comfortable. I- and then you started talking to me, actually talking, which didn’t help much at all, and it was still us hating each other but not really because now I didn’t want you to shut up, I wanted you to keep talking. I don’t know how to explain what happened other than I think I actually like you a lot more than I hate you, and-“

Zitao pauses, and he’s looking genuinely distressed, and Sehun only half understands what he’s saying, but it’s enough. Zitao likes him.

“-and then every time you’d want to fuck, it just wasn’t the same anymore, because suddenly I wanted it to be something it wasn’t, even though I knew that it was going to go back to us stepping on each other’s toes. Which is why I can’t do this anymore, because it’s nothing to you, but at some point it became so much to me-“

Sehun doesn’t know how it happens, but his lips are on Zitao’s and his hands are threading through Zitao’s wet hair. It’s supposed to be familiar, he’s done this before, but Sehun isn’t used to the calmness of a simple kiss, isn’t used to how Zitao’s lips are warm but the rainwater on them is cold. Zitao kisses back, arms wrapping around Sehun. It’s raining really hard, and they’re both soaked, but neither of them seems to care. They’ve kissed so many times before, but this is different, because Sehun feels something other than just arousal. There’s a warm feeling spreading from his chest to his fingertips, and he likes this, he likes kissing like this, he likes  _ Zitao.  _

They pull away, and Sehun rests their foreheads together, shivering only slightly because of the rain. 

Zitao’s looking at him like he’s afraid he’s going to forget Sehun’s face if he blinks, and Sehun takes the moment to drink in Zitao’s blown pupils and almost dazed smile. 

“If I’d known that the clouds were going to split on us today,” Sehun mumbles, “I would’ve brought a fucking umbrella.” 

“I’ll send them a memo to give you notice before doing that next time.” 

“Please,” Sehun whines, breath ghosting over Zitao’s face. “No paperwork talk.” 

Zitao closes his eyes and takes a breath. 

“Sehunnie,” and there’s the stupid nickname again, except Sehun is pretty sure the intent isn’t to annoy anymore. “I just- I don’t know what’s happening, and this could be stupid, but just tell me. Did that mean anything?”

Sehun thinks about it, thinks about the way his hands had settled in Zitao’s hair and the way Zitao had held him up, thinks about how the warmth in his chest was less destructive, more welcoming, thinks about the slight tremor in his heart and sudden weakness in his knees. 

He opens his mouth to say yes, it did mean something, because it did, but then he catches Zitao’s eyes and they seemed resigned, and it looks like Sehun thought about it too long. Zitao smiles, and Sehun recognises this smile, because it’s the same one Zitao’s been giving him lately when Sehun jabs at him, he recognises the way Zitao looks down and shifts his weight before looking back up. It’s the smile, Sehun realises, that Zitao gives when he’s resigned himself to something, when he gives up. 

Zitao shifts back, and Sehun tries to say something but he can’t, mind still racing. He watches as Zitao shrugs off his jacket, and splutters as it’s handed to him. 

“Don’t get too cold,” Zitao says, pushing the jacket into Sehun’s hands. “The rain isn’t stopping anytime soon.” 

“Wait, listen-”   
  


Zitao walks away.

\---

Sehun’s doorbell has been programmed to play a xylophone cover of Ring Ding Dong by SHINee ever since Jongin got his hands on the doorbell settings during one stupid late night binge drinking session. Jongin takes obsession to a whole new level (his house is filled with posters of Taemin) but Sehun can’t really say he minds the doorbell. Not when he has a neat set of Kibum photocards stacked in his closet.

Sehun, however,  _ does  _ mind when he’s woken up at 1 am by said xylophone rendition. He sits up, eyes bleary as Zitao’s jacket slips off his chest. He’d taken a shower, slipped into his pajamas, and then curled under his covers, Zitao’s jacket near him. He likes how it smells. 

Sehun’s still rubbing his eyes as he opens the door, which is why for a second he thinks it’s his vision that’s faulty. But no, it’s 1 am and Huang Zitao is at his front door. 

He blinks, thinking that maybe Zitao will disappear if he does. He’s prone to make stuff up when he’s half asleep, a fact that he’d been made aware of when the fire alarm had rung at 3 am and his neighbours had informed him that he kept babbling about the stunning outfit John Mulaney had on in the hallway. John Mulaney, of course, was not really there. Sehun would know if he was. 

Zitao, it seems, is actually there, because he doesn’t disappear when Sehun pokes him gingerly. Suddenly, everything seems a lot sharper and more in focus. It suddenly comes rushing back to him as his hand withdraws from Zitao’s chest, and he’s instantly feeling a lot more awkward. 

What does he say exactly?  _ Hey, listen, you ran off before I could tell you that I actually might kinda really like you, and it’s taken me years to figure out because we’ve been busy hating each other, and I’m sorry I hesitated and also what are you doing at my house at 1 am? _

“Zitao?”, is what he settles for instead, staring at the man in question, who has a laptop and at least three file folders in his hands. 

“Uh, hey, I know it’s really late and I probably shouldn’t be here, but I was sitting at home thinking about you, and wallowing in my own misery but-” 

Sehun winces at that, and he’s opening his mouth to rush in and tell Zitao to just listen to him, because he needs to tell him that he’s misunderstood, but Zitao carries on. 

“-whatever, that doesn’t matter. But I was thinking about you and what you said in that meeting where we were assigned the stupid bureaucracy task.” 

Sehun starts. 

“What?” 

“Remember? You asked them if we were supposed to get rid of mandated paperwork. And they said that was an  _ option _ , but then I realised that’s  _ all _ we’ve been focusing on. It’s pretty much impossible to just remove documents for circulation, which is why we didn’t get anywhere with that, but I have an idea now.” 

Zitao pauses to take a breath, and Sehun suddenly realises he hasn’t invited him in yet. 

“I- wait, okay, come in, then we’ll talk.” 

Zitao shuffles in, still talking.

“-because I was thinking, they told us it was the Board that complained about the paperwork, right? And I realised that maybe we’ve been going at it wrong. We don’t need to cut down red tape for everyone, just for the equity partners. And-” 

“-if we just get rid of their unnecessary stuff and hand it off to someone else,” Sehun cuts in, turning as he locks the door, “They’ll not be bothered by it anymore.” 

“Yeah,” Zitao breathes out, staring at Sehun. “Yeah, exactly.” 

There’s quiet in the room for a second, as they let it settle. Hope is not lost. They may still have their jobs. 

“Who do we hand it off to?”, asks Sehun. “Interns would be ideal for stupid busywork, but will they really have the motivation to keep it going?” 

“I thought about that too,” says Zitao, and he looks nervous, like what he’s about to say is controversial. “And maybe we could start paying our interns.” 

Sehun gapes at him. 

“That’s why I’m here,” Zitao rushes. “To draw up a plan. Figure out which documents go where, and a pay structure.” 

Sehun checks his watch. 

“We have six hours.” 

“I know.” 

Again, silence. Sehun shifts uncomfortably. 

“Listen, about the kiss, you ran off before I could-” 

“Don’t, Sehun,” and Zitao looks so resigned that Sehun’s heart aches, and all he wants to do is curl back under his covers with Zitao’s jacket. “We don’t have enough time.” 

“But-” 

“Six hours. We need to make it quick.”

\---

Sehun sits across from Zitao, legs crossed on his couch as he works at his presentation. They’ve finally figured out a fee structure, and suddenly he feels a lot more light. It turns out he’d been stressing about his career a lot more than he thought. He’d been given a task, and he’d almost failed. That had never happened before. 

Now, however, as he’s sitting there toggling with pie chart settings, he’s thinking about Zitao walking off like that, leaving him in the rain with a lingering kiss, his jacket, and a lot of regret. Sehun wonders why Zitao had been so quick to interpret his silence as unwillingness, but then again, a month ago, the entire idea of the two of them even so much as being pleasant to each other was ridiculous. He’s been trying to talk, to clear it all out but Zitao keeps brushing him off, and for good reason. They hardly have any time to salvage this.

“What color are you making your charts?”, asks Sehun, looking up from his laptop. He’s handling fee assignments, Zitao is handling the redistribution of paperwork. 

“Uh, red. Why?” 

“Change them,” Sehun says, watching Zitao’s eyebrows twitch. “Junmyeon thinks red is too aggressive.” 

“Yifan likes aggressive,” counters Zitao, and Sehun says.

“ _ Yes,  _ but what Junmyeon says is what goes. Change it.” 

Zitao nods. 

“How does blue sound?” 

Sehun stares at his light blue pie chart.

“Perfect.”

\---

Sehun stares at the cue cards as he speaks his last line of the presentation. He doesn’t really want to look at Junmyeon and Yifan’s faces. 

They’ve been stuffed into a tiny office, which isn’t Junmyeon  _ or  _ Yifan’s, with a three year old laptop, which, as anyone well versed in technology knows, is equivalent to three millenium, to display their presentation. It’s almost as if their bosses don’t want them to give it. But that’s just stupid.

“Well, uh, that was, certainly… uh, interesting,” stammers Junmyeon, while Yifan stares at them with what seems to be a mix of guilt, horror and fascination. Sehun can feel Zitao twitch nervously next to him, and he’s not sure whether it’s because he doesn’t like the way they’ve been received, the lack of sleep, or the fact that Sehun’s clothes are just slightly too small for him, especially the pants (it was their only option, Zitao couldn’t exactly show up to a presentation in ripped jeans and a shirt). He suspects it’s all three. 

Yifan coughs, and sits up. 

“The two of you should take the day off, maybe. You deserve it.”

Junmyeon nods in approval, and Sehun deflates. A whole month of working their asses off (Granted, most of their work was done in a night, but  _ still _ ) for some stupid “the-bosses-don’t-want-to-do-this-thing-so-find-out-a-way-to-not-do-this-thing” assignment that still made no sense, and for what? A lukewarm response and a day off. 

But they do what they have to, which is nod and leave politely. Sehun leaves his cue cards in the room, he doesn’t want to look at them ever again. 

Once they leave, the room is filled with an odd silence, broken eventually by Junmyeon shaking his head. 

“I cannot believe them.” 

Yifan whistles lowly in agreement. 

“You know, when we thought about this on the couch, and you said we should try giving them an impossible problem, I really thought this would be the most impossible problem to give them. You know how junior executives are, tripping to find loopholes so that the system isn’t upset. You couldn’t do that here, and yet…” 

“I was expecting them to half ass it. Pull shit off of Forbes. But no, they just created a full new structure for the company.”

“A very organised one.” 

Junmyeon sighs. 

“I think they thought we’d fire them. As if. Especially after this.” 

“The things they could do if they worked together, Myeon. They’re going to be the next us, I can feel it.” 

“They did seem to be more… amiable. Just slightly.” 

Yifan hums in agreement. 

“Slightly.”

\---

“You know, for people as smart as the two of us are,” says Sehun as they quietly make their way down the hallway to the elevator. “We should’ve figured it out sooner.” 

Zitao shrugs. 

“It doesn’t matter anyways. It almost seemed like the two of them had forgotten about it.” 

“All that work,” Sehun sings out. “For nothing.” 

It’s startlingly casual, considering what lies heavy in the air. When Zitao talks about how useless it all was, Sehun’s mind is fixating on what seems like the only thing that came out of the past month, and that’s the way he now notices how Zitao’s shoulders relax and how good it looks and also how Sehun wants to have coffee with him and talk about their stupid bosses and their stupid lives. 

They stop at the elevator, and Sehun rolls his eyes and huffs, the out of order sign on the door leering in his face. 

“Oh, great, this just keeps getting better. I  _ so  _ don’t want to take the stairs right now.” 

“You don’t have to.” 

Sehun looks curiously at Zitao, who makes a vague  _ follow me _ gesture. Sehun does, barely keeping up. Zitao walks faster than he does. 

They end up in an abandoned corner of the building which no one ever goes to, on all 30 floors, except maybe to sneak the occasional cigarette. 

“There,” Zitao points. “Service elevator.” 

It looks decrepit, definitely the kind of thing that either results in demonic possession or claustrophobic screaming. The button looks positively septic, so he lets Zitao press it, leaning back, wincing at the groan of the machinery coming up. From what he can see of the ancient LED display, it seems to average one floor every two years, and it stops at every floor, so with 30 floors to cover and a bunch of luck, Sehun might not die of old age before he steps out. 

It  _ finally _ dings at their floor, and Sehun silently follows Zitao into the elevator. 

It clicks then, that (especially considering the amount of time this elevator seems to take) the two of them are in an enclosed space for a prolonged period, which means Sehun finally has a chance to clear the air. 

“Zitao-”

_ Ding. _

The elevator doors open, startling Sehun, but Zitao turns to look at him anyways. 

“Look, about the kiss-” 

_ Ding. _

Had someone been racing down each floor just in time for the elevator’s doors to open each time, they would’ve caught a tiny glimpse of Zitao’s face contorting into what looked like resignation, then a sad smile, before the doors closed. Of course, just like the peephole, no one is running down the stairs trying to catch them. In fact, no one is anywhere in the vicinity of the elevator at all. This is only for Zitao and Sehun to see. 

“Sehun, for the last time. Forget about it. It doesn’t matter.” 

_ Ding. _

Sehun fiddles with his jacket. 

“I’m not going to forget it. I need you to-” 

_ Ding.  _

Zitao turns to him, and he looks like he maybe wants to touch Sehun’s face, but he doesn’t.

“Sehun. I was fully prepared to take this whole mess with me to the grave. You stumbled in and started asking questions so I told you, but really, relax. It’s okay, it’s not your fault that you don’t like me. I mean, come on, we sound like middle schoolers, but we’re both adults and-”

_ Ding. _

Zitao is still blabbering away, and Sehun is half considering grabbing him by the collar and shaking him to shut him up, but instead, he just chooses to talk a little louder.

“Okay, no,  _ no, okay, SHUT UP.”  _

_ Ding.  _

Zitao stares at him, slightly stunned. 

“Listen up, you fucking idiot, I’ve been trying to tell you this since it happened, but you’re so caught up in your theatrics that you haven’t let me speak the whole fucking time. I  _ liked  _ it. The kiss was great, I liked it, it  _ felt _ like something. If you’d have let me  _ finish _ , I would’ve told you that right there, but  _ no _ , I’m Huang Zitao and I like to rush into things looking like a kicked puppy and then not listen to anyone, even if my situation can be greatly improved if I did-” 

_ Ding. _

“I don’t get it, what are you trying to-” 

“I’m  _ saying  _ that you’re an absolute idiot and you need to learn how to listen, and also, I’ve discovered that I too, like you a lot more than I’m supposed to hate you.” 

_ Ding. Ding. Ding. _

Zitao does nothing but stare at him, and it seems like he can’t bring himself to say or do anything at all. He opens his mouth, and then closes it, and the quiet disbelief on his face is an expression that Sehun is going to have seared in his memory forever. Sehun huffs exaggeratedly, and rolls his eyes, even though his heart is sped up and he’s probably more nervous than a new elephant trainer around an elephant on steroids.

“I really have to do everything around here myself, don’t I?” 

_ Ding. _

The elevator doors part somewhere on the eleventh floor, no one around to see Sehun’s lips on Zitao’s and Zitao’s hands on Sehun’s waist. Sehun keeps his hands hooked around Zitao’s shoulders as Zitao pulls away for a second. 

_ Ding. _

They stare at each other, and Zitao seems to like whatever he sees in Sehun’s eyes, because Sehun is then up against rickety elevator wall and he’s being kissed within an inch of his life. He struggles to keep up, mostly because it’s so, so familiar, and yet so different. Zitao pulls away again, and he’s  _ smiling _ , and Sehun now understands what he’d meant in the bar last night. 

_ Ding. _

“What now?”, Zitao mumbles, their noses almost touching. 

Sehun casually bring a forearm down from Zitao’s shoulder to his chest, hand splaying over his sternum. He can feel Zitao’s heartbeat. It’s a little sped up. 

“Now,” he whispers, leaning forward a bit, “You take me out to lunch.” 

_ Ding  _

“And then?” 

Sehun sees the smirk play across Zitao’s eyes before it reaches his lips. 

“You take me out for drinks.” 

_ Ding. _

“And after that?” 

“You could come over and pick up your jacket from my house. Except, I’m not sure I know exactly where I kept it, so you might have to… look around.” 

_ Ding.  _

Only a few more floors now. 

“I’m not very good at looking around,” Zitao whispers. “Might have to stay the night.” 

“For the jacket?”, Sehun asks, hand still perched on Zitao’s chest. 

“Of course. For the jacket.”

_ Ding. _

\---

“You’re  _ insufferable _ ,” Sehun groans out as Zitao kisses up his stomach. “I’m supposed to be at work in fifteen minutes, just because you have a day off, doesn’t mean you can- _ fuck. _ ”

Zitao looks up from where he’s working at the smooth skin on Sehun’s stomach, eyes glinting playfully while his face stays schooled in the sort of mock innocence you find in the faces of children insisting that they didn’t eat any candy while their hands are stained with, predictably, candy. 

“I thought we were past all the insults, Hun-ah. We like each other now, remember?” 

They’ve been dating for three weeks now, which has actually been rather fun. For all the usual reasons, but also because an intern caught Zitao bringing Sehun his morning bubble tea and spread rumors about it being poisoned, and Sehun had to shove Zitao behind his giant artificial house plant in the middle of making out (affectionately, this time) when one of Sehun’s concerned work friends knocked at the door. 

“I definitely do not like you when you’re  _ distracting _ me and making me late for work,” Sehun says, fighting to keep his tone steady while Zitao goes back to kissing up his chest. He knows his stomach is going to be littered with new marks, even though the old ones haven’t faded yet. Zitao’s always taken a liking to Sehun’s stomach.

“Don’t worry, I’ll give you a ride, you won’t have to wait for your precious Uber.  _ Some of us  _ actually invested in things we  _ needed,  _ instead of scented candles and artificial plants and the like.” 

Sehun threads his fingers through Zitao’s hair. 

“You are  _ so  _ lucky that you’re maddeningly attractive, or else-” 

Zitao comes up so they’re face to face, hands on either side of Sehun’s head. 

“Don’t throw a fit, Hun-ah. Just give me ten minutes.” 

Sehun huffs, and rolls his eyes, but there’s a small smile forming on his face, just tiny enough to miss. Zitao, however, doesn’t miss it, and smiles back. 

“Please?”, Zitao tries, even though he knows Sehun’s already given in. 

“ _ Fine. _ But only ten minutes,” Sehun says, staring up at Zitao. 

Zitao who is insufferable, maddeningly attractive. 

Zitao, who is  _ his. _

\---

It is a commonly held rule in the business world that there are two things one simply does not do with their coworkers: fighting, and fucking.

This information, which has been gathered over years of experience, generally holds up as good advice. It’s logical, one might say, to not either want to murder the person you meet everyday with your bare hands, or jump them in the middle of the corridor. And yet, there are people who do both. 

Often, when both occur, it lasts for a certain amount of time, before it gets tiring. Hate sex is indeed aggressive to the point where it is exhausting. So, when it gets tiring, people tend to choose one. In this case, the hate part seems to have been dropped, but then again, the sex part (or the subsequent tenderness and adoration and maybe even  _ love _ ), wouldn’t exist without both those terms being present in the beginning. So maybe the rules are flawed, or maybe they’re just subjective, because it sure as hell seemed to work out this time. 

Don’t fight, don’t fuck.

Where’s the fun in that?

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! This fic was really,,, something to work on dshkjdfh  
> I hope you liked it!  
> You can find me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/hztwsx) and also on [Tumblr](https://hztwsx.tumblr.com/).


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